Teenager becomes youngest to swim from Northern Ireland to Scotland solo

Oscar battled the conditions and jellyfish as he attempted to break the record

If you like swimming and one day fancy being in the record books then this story might just be the inspiration you are looking for.

A 15-year-old has become the youngest person to swim the North Channel from Northern Ireland to Scotland solo.

Oscar, who is from County Armagh, swam from the Gobbins to Portpatrick - that's a distance of 35km (21.7 miles), but he actually swam further due to strong currents.

He said it was "hard to explain" the emotions he was feeling when he finally reached the finish.

It took Oscar 16 hours and 38 minutes to finish his record-breaking swim.

As if swimming for that amount of time wasn't enough, he also had jellyfish to deal with.

He said he was stung by the creatures around 20 times during the crossing.

Understandably, he said there were points that he thought "why am I doing this?".

It took Oscar 16 hours and 38 minutes to complete the swim

Oscar got support from a boat during the swim to make sure he was safe and heading the right way.

With strong currents this can be quite tricky, they were that strong during the swim, that it meant he actually swam a total of 46km (28.5 miles).

He said there were points he would look up to see if he was any closer to Scotland and he simply wasn't, he added "it was more of a mental challenge than an actual physical challenge".

To top it all off, once he reached the shore and was finally standing, he found out he had to swim back to the boat as the water was too shallow to dock close to the shore.

Even after all that, he says "it was all worth it in the end".