Una Crawford O’Brien – ‘The person that I fell in love with, he’s not really there now’

Una Crawford O'Brien has opened up about Bryan Murray's Alzheimer’s diagnosis

The actress sadly revealed that "the person I fell in love with, he's not really there."

Una bravely opened up about her husband's condition in an interview with Ireland AM.

She explained that Bryan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2019, but didn't go public with his diagnosis until 2022.

The Fair City actor is set to retire from the soap this month.

Una said it was incredibly important for Bryan to continue acting for as long as it was possible.

However, she had to decide it was time for Bryan to retire from acting this year because she realised he wasn't loving it as much as he used to.

She told the Ireland AM team:

"He wanted to continue [acting] for as long as possible, so I wanted him to continue for as long as possible, and I had to make the heartbreaking decision for him, because he was finding it difficult. He wasn’t enjoying it the way he was before.

"The best thing you could have given Brian all his life, basically, was a script. If he got a script into his hand, it was incredible. He came to life.

"He would sit down, he’d study it, he’d learn his lines, and it got to the stage when it was distressing him a little bit and not quite getting the intonations that were being fed to him through the earpiece, and he might give, you know, a wrong intonation to something, and then he it would upset him."

She said the disease is gradual, but it is heartbreaking to live with.

"We have learned along the journey, and it’s probably just as well that it doesn’t happen overnight, because it’s heartbreaking. The person that I fell in love with, he’s not really there now."