Irish actor Gabriel Byrne - who plays Dr. Paul Weston in the HBO smash series "In Treatment" has admitted it took him years to get over sexual abuse inflicted on him as a child by the Christian Brothers.

Byrne, who was talking on Irish TV at the weekend, said "It took many years to come to terms with it and to forgive those incidents that I felt had deeply hurt me."

"Again I didn't think it severely impacted me at the time but when I think about my later life and how I had difficulties with certain issues, there is the real possibility they could have been attributable to that."

"Unfortunately, I experienced some sexual abuse. It was a known and admitted fact of life amongst us that there was this particular man and you didn't want to be left in the dressing room with him," he said.

"It didn't go on over a prolonged period but it happened at a very, very vulnerable moment," Byrne said.