7,000 homes and businesses still without power in Storm Kathleen aftermath

Handout photo taken with permission from the social media site X, formerly Twitter, of Bill Guiller, of waves crashing in Whitehead. Picture: Bill Guiller/PA Wire

Some 7,000 ESB customers remain without power on Saturday night after Storm Kathleen hit coastal counties earlier today.

ESB Networks says its crews will continue to work on storm repairs for another number of hours to restore power to customers.

The largest outages tonight are across Mayo, Sligo, Leitrim, Laois and Wicklow.

A yellow warning for wind is in effect tonight for Donegal, Mayo and West Galway until 4pm tomorrow.

ESB crews will stand down for the night but it is expected some customers will be without power overnight.

Earlier, up to 34,000 households and businesses were without power as Storm Kathleen brought disruptive and severe winds.

Orange weather warnings for the south and west were in place since early this morning.

The entire island was also under a status yellow wind warning, which started at 5am.

Gusts of 111km/h were recorded at Sherkin Island.

Handout photo taken with permission from the social media site X, formerly Twitter, of Bill Guiller, of waves crashing in Whitehead. Picture: Bill Guiller/PA Wire

Cork, Kerry and Waterford were under an orange wind warning as of 7am, with Met Éireann saying that gale force southerly winds would sweep across the counties, with some severe and damaging gusts.

Members of the public have been dealing with "very difficult travel conditions, fallen trees, some power outages, coastal flooding and wave overtopping."

The warning for the three Munster counties expired at 2pm.

In Cork alone, at midday Powercheck.ie was showing more than 1,500 properties without power in Ballincollig and 750 in Whitechurch. ESB has managed to restore power to a number of areas including 900 customers in Carrigaline.

Travel

A number of trees have already fallen across Cork.

Elsewhere, some Irish Rail services have been delayed due to fallen trees on tracks.

A number of flights have been cancelled and diverted from the country's main airports.

Meanwhile, the ESB PowerCheck has shown outages across both Cork and Kerry already, with thousands of customers being affected.

An orange warning for Galway and Mayo, meanwhile, began at 9am and ended at 6pm.

People are being advised to be very careful driving and to stay away from coastal areas, particularly in the five counties.

The yellow warning for the entire country will expire at 8pm, but there will be difficult travel conditions and debris, with the national forecaster saying to be aware of any loose objects displaced

A number of sporting events have fallen foul of the weather.