How Irish is Halloween? And where do the traditions come from?
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The tradition of, what we now call, Halloween is as ancient as the ceremonial hill sites that raged with for centuries bonfires and still dot our mysterious landscape today. But just how Irish is today’s modern celebration and how much can we claim as our own?
“At its heart, Halloween is an Irish feast,” says author Manchán Magan. “The ancient Irish festival, Samhain, is the basis of modern Halloween. Samhain meant the end of the harvest. It marked the start of winter and was the beginning of a period of darkness, with the sun weakening and spending more time in the underworld. It was thought to be the time of the year when the threshold between worlds was thinnest and that gave creatures from the underworld the chance to access our world more easily.” Often these ghosts, ghouls and fairies would venture through the fields and country roads of Ireland in search of food and unsuspecting victims to take back to the underworld as souvenirs.
“The reason we disguise ourselves as the dead or evil spirits,” says Manchán, “is so we can head out into the night, roaming the roads, safe in the knowledge that if we bump into a being from the dark side, they’ll think we’re one of them and walk on by. It was a good idea to appease these spirits with food, which is why you can still turn up as a ghost on any doorstep in Ireland at Halloween and be offered sweets and nuts. We exported the practice to North America and it spread from there.”
“Traditions are always changing but many of them still have the essence of Samhain,” says Jenny Butler, Lecturer in the School of Religions at University College Cork. “Many people think that trick-or-treating is an American thing, but most of the seasonal festivals in Ireland had this feature. Imbolc, which became St Brigid’s Day, had a tradition of going door to door with an effigy and asking for food, mainly dairy products. Bealtaine the same and it included lightning bonfires.” As Jenny points out, many of the practices that went to the United States, came back to us with slight amendments.
One example of this is the scary luminated pumpkins we see in dark doorways and wicked windows around this time of the year. When the Irish emigrated in vast numbers across the Atlantic, they brought their traditions with them. One of those was the carving of scary faces in whatever vegetables were locally available. In Ireland, it was often a turnip, but as pumpkins were more freely available and, let’s face it, easier to carve, they became the vegetable of choice for Jack O’Lanterns in the United States. They subsequently made their way back here to become integral to our own Halloween tradition.
The increased calorie count and reduction in monkey nuts and fruit in trick-or-treat bags is also widely put down to the American influence. Adult parties are another curious take on the modern feast.
“I’m a fan of Halloween,” says Jenny. “I like anything to do with the carnivalesque, dressing up and playing with imagery. Halloween is for everyone. If you go back further it was a communal thing. What we know of it from archival collections is that adults played tricks and pranks and got involved just as much as children.” As much as we’d like to think Halloween is as exclusive to us as say…Barack Obama, its root as an ancient Celtic festival, means that Samhain took on its own Scottish and Welsh twists. Indeed, the Scots can claim the very name Halloween. As is often the case, when Christianity came to town, it appropriated pre-existing pagan festivals. All Hallow’s Day, the day when all Christian saints and martyrs are celebrated, was shunted into Samhain and was thus preceded by All Hallows’ Eve or Evening which in Scots was shortened to ee’n. Some Scots traditions, though very similar to our own, have their own unique takes. Instead of biting out of apples dangled from a ceiling, for example, our Celtic cousins take chunks out of messy treacle-covered scones and burn nuts to predict the future of their relationships.
While this amorous nut burning was also found in Ireland, today we look to the traditional barmbrack for portents of our romantic future.
“Again it all goes back to this weakness in the space-time continuum,” says Manchán. “The proximity of the two worlds in this period was why games and traditions around prophecy were so common. So finding the ring in the barmbrack foretold that the person would marry. Finding a dried bean prophesied a single life, and finding a stick meant ending up in an unhappy marriage. These were messages from the future.” Fireworks, a more recent, and, many argue, irritating addition to the celebrations, are part of an English tradition based on Guy Fawkes Night. So although we have always had bonfires, fireworks are a decidedly modern addition.
Though Halloween has been through several cultural cycles, its core traits are very much rooted in Ireland and its neighbouring countries where its appeal endures.
“I think Halloween allows us to express and explore something that we are not normally allowed to,” says Jenny. “Whether that’s appearing in a frightening way by dressing up or behaving in a way that is not normally socially acceptable. We can explore the spiritual world and think about the dead. It’s not really something we do in everyday life.”
- Manchán Magan's latest book Listen to the Land Speak, published by Gill Books is out now
Make your way to Leahy’s Farm for their Boo Experience. Take the Haunted Hay Ride and help the local witch make up some potions.
Castlecomer Discovery Park has several events running over the mid-term including a A Bug’s Life — Family Friendly Trail and a Family Foraging Trail.
The troops at the Toy Soldier Factory in Kilnamartyra are now booking for places on their sixty-minute workshops where you can make and paint your own Cackling Witch, Petrifying Pumpkin, Laughing Vampire among others.
The good people at Greywood Arts in Killeagh are offering three willow lantern-making workshops over the mid-term which you can then use in a Halloween parade on November 5.
How about a BOO-WOW Halloween with your pooch? Top Barkz Cork is hosting a Trick ‘n Treat puppy and dog party on October 29 and 30. Learn a new trick or try your paw at dog agility.
This Halloween, Domino’s has created a get-up that will definitely raise the bar for ‘best-dressed’ this spooky season — a human-size Garlic & Herb Dip. The pizza company will be launching a limited-edition drop of these costumes via Domino’s ROI social channels.
- Head over to @Dominos_ROI to get your hands on the fun, fright, dipping delights.