ATLANTIC ROWER Seán McGowan was wished good luck yesterday by one of the greatest of ocean rowers – a man with strong Irish roots and an inspiring story.

Tom McClean, who now runs the Ardintigh adventure centre on Lough Nevis in Scotland, was the first to row single-handedly across the North Atlantic, completing the trip from Canada to Ireland in 70 days. He set a record of 54 days when he again rowed the North Atlantic in 1987 at 44 years of age.

The Atlantic crossings before 1982 are looked on in awe by modern ocean rowers, as they were completed without watermakers, satellite phones, GPS, the Epirb electronic warning system or liferafts.

Although McClean is British and nurtured his spirit of adventure in the SAS, he was returning to the land of his birth when he rowed into Blacksod Bay in Co Mayo in 1969. His mother and father, both now deceased, came from Laois, but he spent the first three years of his life in Bethany House, a Protestant orphanage in Rathgar in Dublin.

He was subsequently brought up in an orphanage in Britain.

“I’m an Irishman, sounding like an Englishman, living in Scotland! My mother, my father, my aunts and my uncles – every single person in my family going back generations is Irish.”

It is only in recent years, prompted by his children, that he has fully traced his roots.

“It’s quite a story, with Ireland and England and everything. I joined the army (and) I am British, very much British, I was in the army nine years.”

In 1985 he lived on the island of Rockall for 40 days to assert Britain’s rights to the rock. He chuckles about that now: “I claimed Rockall for England when I was Irish!”

He moves swiftly to allay any suggestions he would deny McGowan the right to be considered the first Irishman to row an ocean single-handedly if he completes the journey.

“Be fair to him,” he ventures. “I’ve been over here all these years. That’s fine with me. I wish him well. I know a bit about it and I wish him well.”