It may have been another grotty day of a week that had its fair share of deluges and downpours but nothing was going to rain on Shane Lowry’s Open Championship parade.

Forget cautionary notices about the meteorological misery that poured and blew its way down and around Royal Portrush yesterday, the Met Office probably had to prepare a yellow alert warning for the amount of Guinness that was going to get guzzled in great jubilant torrents after this.

At certain points of the afternoon, it was so wet, this correspondent feared his report in The Herald would end up being printed on papier mache.

On a day in which stoicism, both from the players and the spectators, was required in bucketloads, Lowry remained as hardy as the basalt columns of the nearby Giant’s Causeway as the Irishman from County Offaly conquered on Northern Irish soil. The whole of Ireland, however, would have raised a glass to this deserving and fine champion.

Lowry’s closing one-over 72 – his highest score of the championship by five - gave him a 15-under 269 and a six shot victory over the admirable Tommy Fleetwood as the 32-year-old etched his name on to the Claret Jug alongside fellow Irishmen Fred Daly, Padraig Harrington, Darren Clarke and Rory McIlroy.

The Emerald Isle had waited 68 years for an Open to come back here. Golf’s most cherished clump of silverware is staying on it. It was fitting that Harrington, the man who lit the fuse for Irish major success in the modern era with his Open win in 2007, was there by the green to greet the latest Champion Golfer of the Year.

“I grew up holing putts back home to win The Open,” said Lowry. “It was always The Open, wasn’t it? I watched Paddy (Harrington) win his two Opens. I didn’t even know him back then. I’m obviously very good friends with him now. You go into Paddy’s house and the Claret Jug is sitting on the kitchen table. Now I’m going to have one on my kitchen table, as well.”

If the third day of a championship is known as moving day, then yesterday’s denouement was more of a hang-on-grimly-for-dear-life kind of day.

Lowry, who won the Irish Open as an amateur in desperate conditions a decade ago, harnessed the elements manfully. Others just couldn’t hack it. Some were simply hacking it.

JB Holmes, who was in third place after 54-holes, backed out of the running with all the elegance of a man reversing his car into the entire peloton of the Tour de France as he crashed to an 87 which was strewn with pitiful debris.

There were those who prospered, of course. The reigning champion, Francesco Molinari, made the most of the better conditions in the morning to post a best-of-the-day 66 and was propelled 43 places into a share of 11th.

And Scotland’s Robert MacIntyre conjured a wonderful 68 and eventually shared a jaw-dropping tie for sixth on his debut with a five-under tally as those in front of him slithered backwards. It had a been a superb week for this canny young man from Oban who continues to grow in stature.

Lowry, meanwhile, looked understandably nervous as he took to the first tee. It was hardly surprising. The weight of patriotic expectation would have buckled the legs of Finn MacCool.

His four shot lead looked vulnerable right away as he found the bunker with his approach to the first and Fleetwood set up a birdie chance from eight feet. Suddenly a three shot swing looked a distinct possibility.

The Englishman failed to convert the chance, though, and Lowry’s brave putt to limit the damage to a bogey was greeted with a vigorous fist pump which simply underlined the importance of the moment. “That settled me an awful lot,” admitted Lowry, who became, quite possibly, the first bearded Open winner since Bob Ferguson in 1882.

Fleetwood was three back but would never get any closer. He missed another good birdie chance on the second and then bogeyed the third as Lowry increased his advantage.

By the time he reached the seventh, Lowry was at 18-under and seven shots clear. They were just about preparing an open top bus to cart him jubilantly through the remaining holes.

The weather became so appalling at times, dropped shots were inevitable. Nobody behind him could really pick things up, however.

Fleetwood got a birdie at 12 but a double-bogey on 14 effectively ended any lingering hopes he harboured.

On the 15th, Lowry rattled in a birdie putt of eight feet and pumped the air like a man who knew the Claret Jug was his. “It was just incredible to walk down 18, with the crowd going wild and singing ‘Ole, Ole’, “ said Lowry of his procession to a coronation.

“I just couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I welled up a little bit and Bo (his caddie) told me to catch a hold of myself.

“I tried to soak it in as much as I could. It was hard to soak it in because it’s very surreal experience.”

Fleetwood signed off with a 74 as he finished runner-up in a major for the second time in his career on nine-under while Tony Finau was two shots further back.

Brooks Koepka, second, first and second in his last three majors, started with four straight bogeys and then an eagle in an eventful 74 to share fourth with Lee Westwood.

On a soggy, sodden Irish day, though, it was Lowry who was home and dry.