Jack Murphy is set to make his debut as Ryan Donnelly on the popular RTÉ soap 'Fair City' tonight.

Jack (27) will be Ireland’s first transgender soap star.

“This is the first transgender character in Irish soap which is huge for Ireland. And as someone transgender myself, this is huge for me as well,” he told the Irish Sun.

The Dublin man says that school was a particularly difficult time for him. As he was already out as a lesbian, he was bullied up until he graduated in 2008.

“I came out as trans when I was 19. There wasn’t really a moment when I started changing my clothes because I always wore boys’ clothes, but I suppose when I started ­testosterone my looks started to change.

“I always wore men’s style clothes, I was never a girly girl or wearing girl’s clothes. I knew what I was, I just didn’t have a word for it.”

“The Marriage Equality was brilliant and so was the Gender Recognition Act. There is still a long way to go but it is to get people to understand and educate them about transgender.”

Jack says that his parents and friends have been very understanding, and are looking forward to watching his debut tonight.

“I would love to be the person some young trans kid looks up to so I can say there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he concluded.

You can tune into Fair City on RTÉ One tonight at 8 pm.

Although he’s a little under the weather, Jack took to Twitter to say he hopes everyone enjoys the show tonight.