The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, has issued a personal appeal for people to remain indoors as Storm Ophelia started to batter the country with winds of up to 100 miles per hour (161km/h), amid reports of two deaths because of the storm.
With all schools and colleges closed and the transport system virtually halted, the taoiseach said it was the worst storm to hit Ireland in 50 years.
As Varadkar described the impact of Ophelia as a “national emergency” on Monday, a woman in her 70s was killed when a tree fell on her car near the village of Aglish in Waterford.
A man in his 30s died in a chainsaw accident in Cahir, County Tipperary, after trying to remove a tree brought down by the storm, police said.
Referring to Storm Debbie in 1961, Varadkar said: “The last time we had a storm this severe, 11 lives were lost, so safety is our number one priority.”
Speaking before an emergency meeting of the government in Dublin, he called on people to stay at home, stressing that the red weather warning applied to all cities and counties across Ireland.
Varadkar said the danger to the public would not end once the storm had passed, because there would be fallen trees and felled power lines across the country.
“Staff are ready to come in from Northern Irelandand Britain to assist in the coming days in restoring power. We can only restore the power lines when it is safe to do so,” he said.
The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, speaking from his native Cork, one of the worst-affected parts of the country, said: “This is a weather event the likes of which we have never seen before.”
Coveney said the government had been briefed that the strong winds would whip up waves up to 40ft (12 metres) high and “taller than a double-decker bus”.
Met Éireann, the Irish weather service, said Ireland would bear the brunt of Ophelia for three to four hours on Monday.
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