Fair City star Peter Gowen has spoken about his character Ronan's emotional departure from the show last night, saying he found it "beautiful in some way" that he had the chance to tell Dolores how he felt.
In the scenes on Wednesday night, Ronan and Dolores admitted their love for each other, and Gowen told RTÉ Entertainment: "It's kind of beautiful in some way. He's just pleased that he gets to finally say it.
"Pete says to him, 'What are you doing back here?' and he says, 'I'm dying, I don't care... Suck it up baby! If you want to throw me out, that's fine, I don't care'."
Gowen also revealed that the storyline affected him personally, saying it was "therapeutic" to explore such a role.
"I've had experience of cancer within the family and my father was ill for about three and a half years before he died with a stroke, which is a different thing, but it's very therapeutic actually acting these roles because you can explore a lot of your own experience of bereavement and of coping with serious illness," he said.
"It's the sort of stuff you want to do as an actor."
Gowen praised the scriptwriters for the "poetic" way in which Ronan passed, saying "it was written very well and it was easy to play and was very real and sort of, romantic almost."
The actor will be watching the coming episodes to see how Ronan's death will impact Dolores and Pete's relationship going forward.
"I'll be interested to see how it is because I didn't get to read any of the further scripts, so I'll be interested to see how it goes on and how it affects Dolores and Pete's relationship," he said.
"I don't know, their relationship isn't that strong as far as I can see. I don't know how much he can take really of the presence of another man... I think it'll be interesting to see how they work it out and it's very difficult in a relationship to find out that you've been eclipsed by someone else."
Fair City continues on RTÉ One on Thursday at 8pm. Catch up here on the RTÉ Player
