Ireland has been hit with record wind gusts of 114 miles (183 kilometers) an hour as a winter storm batters the country and northern parts of the U.K. Schools have been closed, trains halted and hundreds of flights canceled in the Republic of Ireland,

A powerful storm has left hundreds of thousands of homes without power and caused massive travel disruptions in the United Kingdom.

Ireland was hit with wind gusts of 183 kilometres an hour overnight, the strongest since the Second World War, as a winter storm spiralled in from the Atlantic before hitting Scotland.