Penrose Reveals 'Massive' Role Tyrone All-Star Played In Return To Football After Coming Out

For Tyrone footballer Kevin Penrose, his return to playing Gaelic football for club Aghyaran was an emotional one.

Penrose took an extended leave from football a few years ago, as he grappled with a silent internal battle, coming to terms with his identity as a gay Gaelic footballer.

Ultimately, Penrose would come out to his parents in 2022, but it had been an arduous journey, during which he had begun to feel uncomfortable in a Gaelic football dressing room.

"It's the time when you're finding yourself anyway, as a teenager, you're not really knowing what's going on," Penrose told us on a media call to promote SuperValu's new Pride-themed Bag for Life on Wednesday.

"You're sort of, 'Okay. I need to stand out here to fit in, to be liked.' You just hear the words being thrown around the changing room or on the pitch, and it sort of makes you go back into yourself.

"Like, for me, I could be in the corner of the changing room thinking, 'Okay, I can't act this way, or talk about this, or I have to get involved in this banter, per se, to fit in.'"

News eventually filtered back to Penrose's friends in his home town, with the Tyrone man travelling through Asia when he broke the news to his parents on a FaceTime call.

He spoke at length about his journey to coming out on an amazing episode of the GAA Social earlier this year, and one name mentioned in that podcast was Ronan McNamee.

The 2019 All-Star and 2021 All-Ireland-winning fullback is a clubmate of Penrose's and played a "massive" role in convincing him to return to playing club Gaelic football.

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Speaking on Wednesday, Kevin Penrose detailed how crucial Tyrone's Ronan McNamee had been in his decision to return to football after coming out in 2022.

The pair were schoolmates, and McNamee contacted Penrose after the news to say that the Aghyaran team wanted him to return to playing, and that he would always be welcome at the club.

His actions did not stop there, and Penrose paints an amazing picture of the lengths McNamee went to to make him feel at ease once again.

It's massive, you know. We've grown up together. We played under age together, went to the same schools, you know. We always were quite close in that way, you know.

You know, Ronan is very straight to the point, just tell you how it is, which I think is what you need in that moment.

But to have...like, it's your senior county player as well, to come and have those talks with you, it's encouraging. It sort of again, goes back to setting an example. If your ally and advocate is Ronan McNamee, you're off to a good start. It just shows he's willing to take up that role, I guess, you know, and have the difficult conversation that someone else mightn't have the confidence to do.

Having him just sort of nudge me slightly after a few conversations, you know, just reassure me like, 'No one's going to judge you, like you're very welcome here.' It makes coming back to football that lot easier. And, of course, he is right in the end. I just walked in thefirst training session back and it was just normal.

You know, it's just like, 'Well done. Congrats on coming out. How are you going back into the scene? Now, let's get into the nitty gritty stuff.' You know? You leave that at the gate, then, once you do go back, and everyone's just there to play football.

For a long time, I was there not to play football. I was there just thinking of my thoughts, but now I'm just there to be myself and really get stuck into the football part of it.

It's a wonderful reflection on McNamee's character, and it's clear just how much playing football again has meant to Kevin Penrose.

There is still a long way to go in terms of LGBTQ+ inclusion in sport, with the issue still especially prevalent in men's sport.

Penrose tells us that at the GPA's Pride Brunch earlier this month, the vast majority of attendees were camogie or ladies' football players, highlighting the fact that many players in the men's games have still yet to feel comfortable enough to publicly identify as part of the community.

But progress is being made. At said Pride Brunch, Armagh All-Ireland winner Mark Shields spoke candidly about his identity as a gay man, becoming the first active men's inter-county player since Dónal Óg Cusack to come out.

It's a landmark moment, and Penrose hopes it will give strength to young players who are grappling with the same issues he did once upon a time.

Looking at it now, the changing rooms, like it's completely flipped.

Growing up myself, I didn't have a role model who I saw myself in within that GAA culture and community, which I guess is a big reason why I didn't know how to navigate that time in my life.

But now, fast forward to where we are. I think Mark telling his experience and how the Armagh football team and the setup and the backroom team have really taken it on board and made him feel comfortable...I think it's really a testament to themselves, you know.

I think it goes back to...it comes back to ourselves, you know, within the changing rooms, our managers, the back room, the volunteers, I think it starts with that, and then that's your ripple effect then to show if one club can do it, why can't every other club do it for everyone else?

So I hope his experiences, my own experiences now, and talking about it so openly and freely can really inspire and encourage people, even someone struggling with their sexuality, if it's a football manager really wanting to get involved, but not knowing how.

I think it's going to help a lot of people.