Co Cork was worst hit by the storms and 650 customers in west Cork were still without electricity last night. Of these 425 were in Dunmanway, while in east Cork 250 homes in the Midleton area were without power.
Power has been restored to all homes in north Cork, except for 85 around Kanturk.
Meanwhile, staff at Fota Wildlife Estate and Arboretum, east Cork were counting the cost of the Christmas Eve storms which knocked over 100 trees including a number of impressive cedars.
Mr Cormac Foley, the Heritage Service's Park Superintendent for the South West, said the damage to trees at Fota was the worst he had ever seen. It exceeded that caused by the storms of 1974.
"We lost the cedar of Lebanon at the rear of Fota House - that was planted in 1825 and we also lost two huge Japanese cedars, though probably our best Japanese cedar is still intact.
"Our saving grace is that many of the trees planted in the arboretum over the last ten to 12 years by the late Sean O'Donovan escaped. A lot more damage could have been caused but these replacement trees will save the day, long term," he said.
A number of old beech trees were also knocked by the winds and one fell against a magnificent magnolia campbellii from China and damaged it.
"We lost around 20-30 trees in the arboretum and over 100-plus altogether - some of the trees in the wildlife park were broken in two, but from the way they fell in different directions, it looks as though the winds spun like some sort of tornado," he said.
Mr Foley expressed confidence that many of the damaged trees will re-grow but repair and clearance work on these alone could run into tens of thousands of pounds. The total number of damaged trees could run into several hundred, he said.
According to Fota Trust Secretary, Prof Tom Raftery, staff will start compiling an inventory of broken and damaged trees over the next few days. The winds seemed to cut a narrow swathe, knocking a number of Spanish chestnuts near the car park.
"The curious thing is that many of the older trees we expected to lose, like our 150-year-old Monterrey pine which is rotten near the bottom, stood solid while fine young scots pine with 18 inch diameters were just broken in two," he said.
"The good news is that most of the young trees escaped undamaged and from what I've seen, no tree has been damaged that we don't have two or three replacements for," he said.
According to Mr Foley, Muckross National Park in Killarney escaped lightly, compared to Fota, though a number of old chestnuts near Muckross Abbey were felled, while the Heritage Service Parks at Derrynane in Co Kerry and Garinish Island escaped lightly.