“Derry Girls” creator Lisa McGee says she’s surprised that her sitcom, set in 1990s Northern Ireland, has proven to be a resounding international success on Netflix.

“I’m very shocked to be honest,” says McGee, 38 (“The White Princess”). “I hoped that Irish audiences would like it, and I wasn’t even sure about the UK audience. But I definitely didn’t anticipate it resonating anywhere else. We’re all quite pleasantly surprised by that.”

Now in its second season, “Derry Girls” takes place during the turmoil known as the Troubles, a decades-long conflict between the mostly Protestant Unionists — who wanted Northern Ireland to stay in the UK — and the mostly Catholic Irish Nationalists, who wanted to leave and join a united Ireland.

The series was UK Channel 4’s most-watched comedy in more than a decade — the second season averaged 3.2 million viewers — and thanks to easy access on Netflix, it’s now proven to be a worldwide success.

“People trying to get to grips with the political situation through something as silly as ‘Derry Girls’ has been quite surprising . . . in Britain, MPs reference it when they’re talking about Brexit and stuff,” says McGee. “That’s just crazy! It’s a little sitcom about five school kids!”

Although she now lives in London with her husband Tobias Beer (“The Syndicate”), McGee grew up in Derry and based the show off her own teen experiences. “Derry Girls” is a coming-of-age comedy following four often-selfish and foul-mouthed girls (played by Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Nicola Coughlan, Jaime-Lee O’Donnell and Louisa Harland) and one English boy (Dylan Llewellyn) as they engage in typical activities such as attending school and scheming to go to parties — all against the backdrop of military checkpoints and the occasional bombing.

But unlike other shows set in times of political turmoil, politics aren’t the focus of “Derry Girls.”

“I can completely understand why it feels universal,” says McGee. “No matter what’s happening, teenagers will be teenagers. There’s something quite comforting about that. I think there’s lots of us around the world living through circumstances which feel quite uncertain and scary. People are taking comfort in the fact that young people will still be selfish, still laugh and still do the things they’ve always done no matter what’s going on around them.”

She also thinks the show might resonate beyond Ireland because she draws from many American influences.

“I grew up on ‘Friends,’ ‘Frasier,’ ‘Seinfeld.’ A lot of my influences would be American stuff actually, rather than British or Irish,” McGee says. “Maybe that’s why people can hook on it even though it does feel quite alien [to non-Irish people], because it’s inspired by what everyone knows.”

So does the show have an infinite future? McGee, who’s working on the third season while pregnant, says she’ll decide after it films next year.

“I’m kind of only interested in the characters while they’re young and innocent,” she says. “There’s something about that tight gang and being in school with each other every day, and the energy of that. I’m not sure about seeing them beyond 18. I don’t think it’s a show that will run for 10 [seasons].

“I’ll see how the third one goes and take it from there.”