Record high winds from Storm Eowyn battered Ireland and Northern Ireland on Friday, leaving one man dead and almost one-third of Irish homes and businesses without power and forcing the cancellation of hundreds of flights.

The storm had knocked out power to more than half a million utility customers by early Friday as it moved across Ireland.

Millions of people in Ireland and northern parts of the U.K. heeded the advice of authorities to stay at home Friday in the face of hurricane-force winds that disabled power networks and brought widespread travel disruptions.

Ireland's national weather service says the country has seen 114 mph wind gusts, the highest ever recorded on the island.

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

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,