Halloween: A merry gathering in the face of fear

The ancient Irish celebrated Samhain, the first day of winter – one of the four major pre-Christian festivals – on November 1^st. Marking the end of one pastoral year and the beginning of another, Christians later appropriated that day as the ‘Feast of All Saints’, testimony of the opposing belief systems that coexisted for so long in Ireland, pagan and Christian. The festivities of the Eve of Samhain, Oíche Shamhna, began at sundown on the previous day, October 31^st. Thus October 31^st came to mark the real celebrations. Known as Halloween, it’s a welcome festivity to look forward to as evenings become longer and colder.

This was a night on which the supernatural was deemed to be at its most active and powerful – it was considered an especially powerful date in the calendar when the otherworld could come into the normal world. Despite being associated with the scary supernatural, traditionally, Irish people saw Halloween as a night of fun and games.

Samhain, and the other quarter day festivals, Imbolc, Bealtaine  and Lughnasa, were all rooted in farming practice and marked key dates in the agricultural calendar. In older times, Halloween marked the time when farming families were reunited after ‘booleying’[1]. Booleying was a seasonal movement of livestock that brought cattle and their keepers from their permanent dwellings in lowlands, to temporary summer dwellings and pasture in the uplands[2]. Once a major part of rural life in some parts of Ireland, it generally involved younger unmarried men and women tending livestock and residing with them on the hillsides. Booleying was considered a joyful time of fair weather with plentiful food. As farms took on more modern practices in the late nineteenth century, booleying declined and young farm workers instead began to seasonally migrate or emigrate permanently in the search for work. But for a long time, it took place  between May and October and by Halloween the last of the cattle were expected to be driven home along with their herders.

Halloween, therefore, once marked the time of the safe return of young family members who had spent summer on the hillsides and as well as being associated with bonfires, disguise and high jinks, It was ultimately a night for the family to gather around the hearth at home.

Of course the beginning of winter marked the end of summer grazing but perhaps Halloween was seen as an additional deadline, a night for the youngsters to be finally home from the exposed hillsides and back to the safety of the family residence away from supernatural danger? There was always a great belief in the otherworld in Ireland, and a fear that the beings and faeries from there might abduct young people. As it was believed spirits were about people disguised themselves as fellow-ghouls so they would be safe from harm. People made their masks or disguises as grotesque as they could, rubbing their faces with soot, using false names and changed voices. On that night they doused themselves with Holy Water and carried wooden Halloween crosses, a burnt coal or a black handled knife for protection.  As with the communal fires of Bealtaine and St John’s Eve, the Halloween bonfires were lit to protect people from these evil forces.