Kevin Penrose thriving on and off the field

​By Paul Keane

Earlier this month, Kevin Penrose sat on a stage with Armagh footballer Mark Shields at the Gaelic Players Association's Pride brunch.

Both are openly gay and a discussion between them on all things LGBTQ+ was moderated by Tyrone senior footballer Conor Meyler.

When Penrose looked out at the audience, it was predominantly female faces that he saw staring back. Clearly there is a road to travel before more male players feel comfortable being their genuine selves in public.

Penrose is hoping he can help on that front and is happy to share his own personal tale, of a raging inner monologue throughout those confusing late-teen/early 20s years and, in more recent times, of a mind thankfully at peace.

He has been openly gay for a number of years and after too long dipping in and out of football activity, never quite settling long enough anywhere as he searched to find his true self, he has put three consecutive seasons with his club Aghyaran behind him and feels like he's finally thriving.

Penrose and Meyler actually go back a long way. They went to school together and Penrose, now 31, remembers playing against future All-Ireland SFC medal winner Meyler in an U-16 game.

Meyler, as it happens, was a late developer with Tyrone teams but eventually enjoyed a lengthy inter-county career, which is still going, though it never happened for Penrose.

He too dreamed of success in red and white, the sort that his older brother, Martin, had experienced when winning All-Irelands with Tyrone in 2005 and 2008.

But between the general pressures of life and that battle for his very identify, Penrose took off to see if life might be a little more straightforward elsewhere, pitching up for college in Liverpool initially and then spending several summers in the US.

"At 18 or 19 I went over to Liverpool and that was my first way of trying to escape my sexuality I guess," said Penrose, who found himself at odds with the often machismo dressing-room environment.

All the while, his burgeoning football career suffered and Meyler raised that very issue at the Pride brunch, querying exactly how good he could have been if he was just a little more at ease with himself back in those days?

"His question was if I knew back then, could I have been a county player today sort of thing?" said Penrose. "Because it's that pivotal age where you're trying to break into minor teams, getting called into trials and stuff. I guess it's just one of those things you'll never know.

"Look, I know that I'm well able to play, I know I'm a good footballer and maybe if those years weren't lost, I could have got to a higher standard. I guess I'll just never know.

"It's a shame that I'll never know if I could have got to that point. But I think in the long-run, looking back, I had to go through all of that to come out the other side to where I'm at now, where I have a relatable story for all those other lads who are going through what I was going through back then."

Penrose was speaking at the launch of SuperValu's new limited edition Pride themed Bag for Life which is on sale this month in outlets nationwide. Every cent of the profits will go to Belong To, the national LGBTQ+ youth organisation.

A content creator in his day job, Penrose gets it that every little helps in terms of painting the picture publicly of a more reasonable and welcoming society. That coming out doesn't have to be as scary a prospect as it once was for him. He is also beating the drum for dressing-rooms to be more inclusive environments, with less harmful language thrown around.

"This SuperValu campaign, and Pride month and the workshops and everything that's being done, they all underline really why we have to come out and share our stories," said Penrose. "I'd like to think that down the line it will get to a point, maybe not in our lifetime, but hopefully at some stage where everyone is just themselves and feels that acceptance."

Penrose revealed that another male family member is also gay and 'moved away to Belfast, I guess just had a harder time' coming out.

He sees that story repeating itself all the time, right across the country.

"The amount of lads that move away from rural communities and their clubs, even if they're good footballers, they just feel they have to move away and the club is probably thinking, 'Why are these lads not coming back?'" said Penrose. "That's a reality."