Look to Ireland to embrace the true spirit of Halloween

Anna Hart speaks to historians, spiritual leaders and revellers about Samhain, the ancient Celtic festival now enjoying a resurgence but which the Irish were forcibly taught to forget

- Anna Hart

Of all the elaborate ideas humans have come up with to make life more bearable, one of our most creative and enduring is this annual celebration of death, decay and darkness. Be it Dia de los Muertos in Mexico, or Halloween all around the globe, or Samhain in Ireland, macabre seasonal festivals are about embracing the inescapable approach of the darker, colder and more fatal half of the year.

Growing up in Belfast, I loved Halloween more than any other celebration on the calendar: the scary movies, the socially acceptable begging for sweets, the gothic fashion, the smell of smoke and sparklers. But it’s shamefully recently that I learned about the ancient Celtic roots of Halloween.

My favourite Halloweens were celebrated in Derry, where every single person on the street would be in fancy dress; if you weren’t dressed up, people stared at you in alarm. I went to a Protestant school and chose to learn Spanish and French (so I could escape Belfast for a glamorous European country as soon as possible), yet the sound “Samhain” (pronounced SOW-in) is relatively new to my ears.

My Catholic friends were introduced to it as the Irish language word for “November”. Today, there is a huge resurgence in interest in the Irish language and a more widespread appreciation for the culture we lost in Ireland through colonisation, Christianity and capitalism. At least in my consciousness, Samhain was a casualty of these three Cs.

This is changing. In Ireland, we don’t celebrate Halloween on the night of 31 October anymore, we call it Samhain. Mythology historian and author Anthony Murphy began to notice a renewed interest in ancient Irish spiritual practices after the economic crash of 2008. “Another factor is the shift away from organised religion in Ireland, in the aftermath of paedophilia scandals among Irish Catholic priests,” he says.