‘I won’t let Alzheimer’s beat me,’ Fair City star
Veteran actor says he is remaining positive as he adjusts to his diagnosis
DESPITE revealing his Alzheimer’s diagnosis this week, Irish RM and Fair City actor Bryan Murray says he remains positive and that ‘they will have to drag me away’.
The veteran actor also reveals how his diagnosis came after his short-term memory began to deteriorate.
‘If you told me something in the morning, by lunchtime I would have forgotten,’ he says in a new television interview that airs tonight on RTÉ One.
But he adds: ‘I am not going to let it beat me. Having dementia and what is possible after having dementia is a pretty scary thing.’
Supported by his on-screen wife and real-life partner, Una Crawford O’Brien, Bryan says they are determined to ensure life goes on as normal and for as long as possible.
Una says: ‘When you first hear the word Alzheimer’s you think the absolute worst but it’s not, and if people see people like Bryan, who has been an actor since he was 21, still out there doing their own thing after the diagnosis, it is a help. They are not going to say, “this is the end”.’
The couple say they want to spread awareness of the disease and to offer reassurance to others who have been diagnosed.
‘There is an answer to it. It’s not the end of the world. It’s the changing of your world but not the end,’ says Bryan.
‘There are people out there to support you. There’ll be some kind of a medical breakthrough down the line, and I really want to stress that there’s help and there’s hope.’
Bryan, who features in tonight’s episode of Keys To My Life, takes presenter Brendan Courtney on a nostalgic tour of his previous homes and favourite places.
He says an ill-fated investment in a failed theme park in Co. Kildare was a dark time for him and his former wife, Juliet Ramsey.
‘It was a lot of money and took a couple of years to pay it back. It haunted us for such a long time. It was a serious shake.’
The actor also speaks of his rise to fame, from rags in a tenement slum in Dublin with his family to riches in a leafy London suburb.
‘I didn’t quite get that we were as poor as we were because they kept it from me and that takes some doing,’ he says.
At 17, his family were saved from destitution when they moved to a corporation house in Dublin’s Arbour Hill.
‘The whole world changed. It was a two-storey house. There were toilets, running water and a bath. We’d died and gone to heaven!’ he says.
‘I was desperate to be an actor, but my mother said, “Go off and get yourself a trade and if it doesn’t work out, then you’ll have a trade to fall back on”.’
Taking her advice, Bryan became an apprentice electrician which, as luck would have it, landed him a job at the Abbey Theatre where he went on to take part in 50 productions. Years later he found himself in London working on his famous roles in Strumpet City and The Irish RM.
‘Coming from a working-class background... to be working on the West End and then to start doing a television career, which never really stopped.’
‘It’s the changing of your world but not the end’