STEPHEN REA has opened up about his marriage to late IRA bomber Dolours Price.
Price passed away in North Dublin back in 2013.
30 years earlier, she was involved in the 1973 car bombing of the Old Bailey in London.
More than 200 people were injured in the bombing, while one person died of a heart attack following the blast.
Price was later sentenced to 20 years in prison where she later went on hunger strike.
She was eventually released in 1980 and went on to marry Rea, who starred in several films including Michael Collins, The Crying Game and V for Vendetta.
They divorced in 2003 but shared two sons together, Oscar and Danny.
Speaking during an appearance on the Tommy Tiernan Show, Rea spoke candidly about their marriage and Price’s battles with alcohol addiction.
He said: "My father was an alcoholic and drank himself out of a job. We started moving around you know to survive.
"I had that kind of drama which is deeply upsetting if you're young.
"And then strangely I married someone who was so troubled.
"For a sensitive person like her, it was very tough.
"She masked it very well at the beginning because she came out of prison. I've never talked about this before by the way.
"She came out of prison after eight years, how could she be anything but destroyed?
"But she masked it very well and we were both at a stage in our life where we had missed some years because of - in my case relationships weren't going anywhere - and we both wanted children.
"In the end we had two sons which have brought me intense happiness. The great thing about the lockdown is that I've been with the boys in my house basically a year and it's been actually great."
Now 74, Rea said he decided to end the marriage in order to “save” himself and his two sons.
"The marriage was so destructive in many ways that I'm not rushing into anything,” he said.
"She was very funny, very literary, my two guys have wonderful vocabulary which a lot of that comes from her.
"She just wasn't able you know."
He continued: "It happened over a period of time but I read a piece in a paper where a woman, a mother, had to get her son who was an addict to leave the house.
"She said in it, 'Until the addict leaves the house nobody is going to get any better'.
"I cut it out and I kept it and reminded myself of it all the time. That's a mother putting her own son out of the house.
"I had to negotiate a separation, I mean I got her a house and everything.
"It wasn't just to save myself, it was to save everybody, it was to save the boys as well."
Once an active member of the IRA, Price was a vocal critic of Sinn Féin in her later years.
Prior to her death, she went on to detail her involvement in IRA activity as part of the 2018 feature-length documentary I, Dolours, which is available to watch on Netflix now.
See More: Dolours Price, IRA, Michael Collins, Sinn Féin, Stephen Rea
