The rain came down in sheets over Belfast’s Falls Road, not the soft poetic kind that romanticizes tragedy, but the hard, relentless kind that soaks through wool coats and seeps into the bones. It was the kind of rain that made the city feel smaller, more claustrophobic, as if the very sky were pressing down on the divided streets below. On the night of November 14, 2025, that rain became the backdrop for something electric, something dangerous, something that would soon set the entire island ablaze. At 3:01 a.m. GMT, Netflix dropped the first episode of “Trespasses”, a six-part limited series adapted from Louise Kennedy’s internationally acclaimed debut novel. And within hours, Northern Ireland, and the world, was no longer the same.

By dawn, #TrespassesNetflix had claimed #1 globally, amassing 28 million hours viewed in the first 24 hours. In Belfast, pubs opened early. In Dublin, bookshops sold out of Kennedy’s novel before noon. In London, critics who’d dismissed Irish stories as “niche” were suddenly writing feverish 1,000-word raves. But it wasn’t the politics that hooked them. It wasn’t the history. It was her, Cushla Lavery, a 24-year-old Catholic schoolteacher with a voice like smoke and eyes that could start a riot. And him, Michael McAtamney, a married Protestant British soldier whose uniform was both shield and target. Their love story wasn’t just forbidden. It was lethal. And the world couldn’t look away.

The year is 1975. Belfast is a city under siege, not just from the British Army and the IRA, but from itself. Barbed wire snakes through neighborhoods like veins. Children play hopscotch around army checkpoints. A wrong turn, a wrong word, a wrong glance can end in a body bag. Into this pressure cooker steps Cushla Lavery, played by Saoirse Ronan in a performance already being called career-defining, a young teacher at St. Dallan’s Primary, where she teaches Irish to wide-eyed Catholic kids who’ve never known peace. By day, she’s composed, sharp-tongued, fiercely protective of her pupils, especially Davy McGeown, a quiet boy from a mixed marriage who’s bullied for being “neither fish nor fowl.” By night, she helps her mother run the family pub, The Half Door, a dimly lit sanctuary where locals drink away the day’s terror and gossip flows like Guinness. It’s here, amid the clink of pint glasses and the low hum of rebel songs, that Cushla first sees him.

Michael McAtamney, portrayed by Paul Mescal with all brooding intensity and restrained violence, walks in wearing the uniform of the enemy, khaki, beret, the Union Jack patch on his shoulder like a brand. He’s 32, married, a father of two, stationed in Belfast on a tour that was supposed to last six months but has stretched into two years of hell. He’s not here to drink. He’s here because his patrol route takes him past the pub every night, and for reasons he can’t explain, he’s started lingering. Their first exchange is barely a conversation. “What’ll it be, soldier?” Cushla asks, her tone flat, professional. “Whatever’s least likely to kill me,” he replies, and there’s a flicker, just a flicker, of something human in his eyes. That’s all it takes.

The affair doesn’t explode. It simmers. A brush of fingers when he pays for his pint. A shared cigarette in the alley behind the pub, rain hissing on the ground between them. A moment in the school car park when Michael drops off supplies for Davy’s class, Cushla’s hand lingers on the box, his on hers, for three seconds too long. Then comes Episode 1’s final scene, the one that’s already being called “the kiss that broke Netflix.” It’s 2 a.m. The pub is closed. Cushla is locking up when Michael appears out of the fog, soaked, shaking, not from cold, but from adrenaline. He’s just survived an IRA ambush. His patrol lost two men. He shouldn’t be here. He can’t be here. But he is. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he says, voice raw. “Neither do I,” Cushla whispers. And then they crash into each other, desperate, hungry, terrified. The camera circles them like a predator, rain streaking down their faces, the sound of distant sirens fading into the roar of their breathing. It’s not romantic. It’s catastrophic. Cut to black. 28 million people screamed at their screens.

Saoirse Ronan doesn’t play Cushla, she becomes her. Every micro-expression is a novel: the way her jaw tightens when a British soldier searches her bag, the way her eyes soften when Davy reads aloud in Irish, the way her hands tremble when she lights a cigarette after Michael leaves. This isn’t the polished Ronan of Little Women or Lady Bird. This is feral Ronan, a woman who knows one wrong move could get her disappeared, but who chooses love anyway. Paul Mescal is her perfect mirror. Michael is not a hero. He’s a man drowning in moral quicksand, a soldier who believes in “keeping the peace” but has blood on his hands he can’t wash off. Mescal plays him with a coiled violence, a man who could snap at any moment, but who looks at Cushla like she’s the only light in a world gone dark. Their chemistry is palpable, not the glossy, airbrushed kind, but the kind that makes you feel like you’re witnessing something you shouldn’t.

The supporting cast is a masterclass. Ciarán Hinds embodies Cushla’s alcoholic mother, Eilis, whose sharp tongue hides a lifetime of grief. Ruth Negga brings fire to Fiona, Cushla’s best friend and fellow teacher, whose loyalty is tested when the affair threatens to spill over into the school. Young Davy McGeown, played by Jude Hill, the breakout from Belfast, becomes the moral center of the storm, his innocence a fragile thread in a tapestry of violence.

This isn’t a history lesson. It’s a haunting. Director Lynne Ramsay, known for We Need to Talk About Kevin, doesn’t shy away from the violence, but she doesn’t glorify it either. A car bomb detonates off-screen, we see only the aftermath: a mother’s scream, a child’s shoe in the rubble, Cushla’s face as she realizes the blast was meant for Michael’s patrol. The camera lingers on burned-out cars, graffiti-scarred walls, children playing soldiers with sticks. The Troubles aren’t scenery, they’re a pressure cooker, and Cushla and Michael are inside it, boiling. The show doesn’t take sides. It shows both: the Catholic family who lost a son to a British bullet, the Protestant soldier who just wants to go home to his kids, the IRA man who plants bombs but cries when his daughter is born. It’s not about who’s right. It’s about who survives.

Louise Kennedy’s “Trespasses” (2022) was a phenomenon, shortlisted for the Women’s Prize, named Waterstones Book of the Year, and translated into 20 languages. Kennedy, a former chef from Holywood, County Down, wrote it in her 50s after decades of silence about growing up during the Troubles. The novel is semi-autobiographical: her own mother ran a pub, her brother was in the IRA, and she once fell in love with a British soldier who vanished after a bombing. The adaptation stays faithful but fearless. Key changes include Cushla’s pregnancy, hinted in the book, made explicit, and devastating. Michael’s wife, Margaret, played by Florence Pugh in a chilling cameo, is given a voice, and a gun. The ending? Darker. Bloodier. Unforgiving.

The internet is on fire. TikTok is flooded with 3.2 million videos under #TrespassesKiss, with users recreating the rain-soaked scene in their bathrooms. Twitter has seen #CushlaAndMichael trending for 72 hours straight. One viral tweet from a 45-year-old man from Derry read, “I’m a 45-year-old man from Derry and I haven’t cried like this since my da died. #TrespassesNetflix,” garnering 1.1 million likes. Reddit’s r/TrespassesNetflix has 250,000 members in 48 hours, with megathreads titled “THE KISS CHANGED MY DNA” and “MICHAEL’S WIFE IS THE REAL VILLAIN.” Critics are unanimous: The Guardian called it “A love story so intense it feels like a war crime.” Variety wrote, “Ronan and Mescal don’t act, they combust.” The Irish Times declared, “Finally, a Troubles drama that doesn’t flinch.”

This isn’t a romance. This is a funeral march with a pulse. You’ll fall in love. You’ll have your heart ripped out. You’ll never forget their names. “Trespasses” isn’t coming to Netflix. It’s invading your soul. Are you ready to trespass?