Clodagh Leonard
Chairperson of the Dublin LGBT+ Pride board.
My first Pride was such a treat. I remember coming up from Mayo and being so overwhelmed to see so many LGBT+ people expressing themselves exactly as they were. My teens were so shaped by shame that I believed if I told people who I was they would leave. [The thoughts] that there was something wrong with being queer and here I was, surrounded by people celebrating the thing I thought made me different/alone. I was me and that was fine. It was genuinely transformative. I felt like I had arrived.