Following a wet and windy Saturday, conditions have greatly improved across Ireland on Sunday afternoon with widespread sunshine developing in many parts.

After a largely dry ten-day spell, heavy rain affected much of the country from Saturday through to Sunday morning. Johnstown Castle in Wexford recorded 37.2 mm of rain, with high totals also reported at Roches Point, Cork (32.5 mm), Cork Airport (31 mm), Valentia, Kerry (28.6 mm) and Mullingar, Westmeath (22.2 mm).

Parts of County Down experienced flash flooding overnight on Saturday into Sunday morning as more than two inches of rain in Northern Ireland.

Some strong winds were also reported with Malin Head in Donegal recording a 83 km/h gust at 5.00am on Sunday.

Status Orange alerts had been in place for Cork and Waterford, while Met Éireann and the UK Met Office issued Status Yellow rainfall alerts for Kerry, Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny, Louth, Down, Armagh and Antrim. All warnings have since been lifted after the last of the rain moved into the Irish Sea early this afternoon.

The scenes below show Dún Laoghaire in Dublin, Kenmare in Cork, Kilmaley in Clare, Inis Mór in Galway, Strandhill in Sligo and Ballybunion in Kerry.

The rest of the day will be dry apart from a few isolated showers. In fact, more sunshine is likely to be recorded this afternoon than during the past ten days combined at many weather stations, following what has been an exceptionally dull period.

While it will stay mostly dry across the northern half of the country tonight, rain will spread into Munster and Leinster overnight and through early Monday before clearing to scattered showers. Further showers are expected on Tuesday before more widespread rain extends across Ireland later on Wednesday into Thursday, with a risk of strong winds developing. It will become more settled through Friday and the weekend but will turn noticeably colder.