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

After it was announced that Fair City star Bryan Murray would be retiring from acting, his partner Una Crawford O’Brien has given some insight behind the decision.Murray was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2019, with only his family and friends knowing until he went public with the news in 2022.Now, Una told Ireland AM on Sunday, April 13, that she had to make the call for him that it was time to retire from the hit RTÉ soap, and his other acting endeavors, after she could see he wasn’t enjoying it like he used to.

Bryan Murray and Una Crawford O’Brien. Pic: VIP Ireland/G McDonnellShe explained: ‘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. ‘And so the time had come for him to go out, not with people feeling sorry for him, but for him to go out on a bit of a high still. And that was important.

’Bryan Murray as Bob Charles and Una Crawford O’Brien as Renee Phelan in Fair City in 2006. Pic: RTESpeaking on how his diagnosis has progressed over the years, she added: ‘The only positive thing I can say about it is that it’s gradual. You don’t wake up and it’s there.

I knew before he was diagnosed that it was a great possibility, and so it wasn’t a surprise. ‘So I have adapted and adopted things, and 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.

‘He’s had such a love of life. He was so, you know..

. just if he had a bit of money, [he’d say] “Where are we going? What are we doing?” Bryan would never have any money, because he’d always want to do something and go someplace. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ireland AM (@irelandamvmtv)‘And we had fantastic holidays and that’s gone.

All he wants to be is at home, and when he’s at home, he doesn’t know it’s home.’The 75-year-old first appeared on Fair City in 2005 in the role of Bob, a man whose complex relationships and gripping storylines captured the attentionof viewers across the country.Bryan Murray’s last appearance on Fair City will be on Thursday, April 24.

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