Out Irish Hurler Dónal Óg Cusack Gives Powerful Pride Speech: VIDEO

Irish hurler Dónal Óg Cusack, who made headlines when he came out in 2009, gave a powerful speech to the Foyle Pride Festival in County Derry last week, the Irish Times reports.

Said Cusack:

"When I did come out to them (his teammates) we had lots of deep conversations. And their loyalty to me then and since then has been one of the most moving and meaningful things in my life. It’s been a great positive. So have all the encounters with young people thinking about coming out. All the meetings with people who took a bit of encouragement in taking big steps in their own lives....When I came out a few years ago I wasn’t making any big statement about myself I was following up on a promise I made to myself when I was younger. I was at a gay club in Cork and somebody recognised me as a hurler. I pretended not to be who I was and I felt sick afterwards. I promised I’d never pretend to be something that I wasn’t."

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

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Irish Hurler Donal Og Cusack: 'I'm Gay'

Donal Og Cusack, a legendary Irish goalkeeper in the Gaelic sport of hurling, has come out of the closet in a new biography, the Belfast Telegraph reports:

"The player has lifted the lid off his bisexual past in a candid story of his life that makes him the first ever senior GAA star to publicly declare his homosexuality. The Cork hurler from the small village of Cloyne is a legend in GAA circles after winning three All-Ireland finals. Yet in what may shock the sporting establishment, he admits to sleeping with both women and men before accepting his sexuality as a gay man in his autobiography Come What May published by Penguin Ireland and due out this month. In an honest and down-to-earth account of his life as one of the GAA's most high-profile players, he reveals how he tried to date women as a young man even though he knew from the age of 13 or 14 'that I was a bit different'. 'I tried to go out with women to make sure, to see what kind of feeling it gave me,' he writes.' I went out with nice women and good women, but sure, I still knew. I wanted something else. I get more out of men. I just do. Always have. I know I am different but just in this way. Whatever you may feel about me or who I am, I've always been at peace with it,' he said."

Watch a clip of a hurling match, AFTER THE JUMP...