Fair City's Bryan Murray diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease 

Bryan Murray with wife Una Crawford O’Brien Picture: Maxwells 

Fair City star Bryan Murray has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

The actor, who plays Bob Charles in the RTÉ soap, opened up about the diagnosis in the latest issue of the RTÉ Guide.

The 73-year-old said he has been living with the diagnosis for three years, but decided to go public now in the hopes of helping others who have the illness.

"As a younger actor, I would get a script, it would be four pages and within 15 minutes I would know the lines," he said.

But then, he said, "after half an hour of reading a script, I had no recollection of it". 

When it first started, my character would be looking at a laptop, reading a newspaper, or I might have had a clipboard, but it would be the script in front of me

Praising the Fair City team, he said, they have supported his continued role on the show. 

"They really could have said, well if you can't learn your lines, you can't be in the show, but they did the exact opposite and that got rid of one of my biggest fears."

Bryan Murray said Fair City have been supportive 

Speaking to RSVP, his wife and on-screen co-star Una Crawford O'Brien, said she noticed her husband was struggling to learn his lines and asked him to get his memory checked. 

"He had the tests and got the diagnosis.

"For Bryan, memory was his thing, and to have it taken away from you when you have been a professional actor for 52 years is upsetting.

"Yes, you can use tricks and all the rest of it, but when you can't remember, it's hard."

Murray said that he's sharing his diagnosis so that anyone who's been recently diagnosed knows "there is an answer to it". 

"It's not the end of the world. It's the changing of your world, but it's not the end. 

"I wish I didn't have it, but I do have it, and I'm still here. I have it and I am working with it."