He was a colonel in the Royal Irish Rifles, seeing action on the Western Front in the First World War and in Karelia where he raised and led a local regiment during the Allied intervention inn North Russia.
On the outbreak of the First World War he joined the Royal Irish Rifles (RIR), part of the 36th (Ulster) Division, and, during the 1916 Battle of the Somme, was active in the Thiepval Wood section when it suffered heavy losses achieving its objectives.
The formation melted away as a transfer to White Russian command was attempted and Woods was evacuated in October 1919 with the rest of the British forces.
[2] Standing as the Fighting Colonel he was first elected in a by-election held on 2 May 1923 for Belfast West, following the assassination of William Twaddell, the sitting MP.
He objected to the appointment of English officers, the dismissal of District Inspector John William Nixon in February 1924 as a result of the McMahon killings, and in March 1924 reductions to the USC.
His loss can, in large part, be attributed to the abolition of proportional representation in February 1929, its replacement with a first-past-the-post system and the establishment of new electoral constituencies which divided his support base.
[1] After his political career in Northern Ireland had ended, Woods moved to England in the 1930s and remarried, living in Long Crendon, Buckinghamshire.