Halloween Irish Tradition

Samhain exactly means “summer's end.” Here in Ireland, Halloween is recognized as Oíche Shamhna, or what other people may call the eve of the winter's calendar. With the growth of Christianity, the festival of Samhain was transformed to Hallowmas, or All Souls Day, to honour the souls of the sacred dead who had been declared as saints that year. So the night prior to that became generally recognized as Halloween, Hollantide, or Hallow’s eve, depends on where you are.

November 2nd became known as All Souls Day, when prayers were to be presented to the souls of all who the deceased and those who were in the offing in Purgatory for entrance into Heaven. All the way through the centuries, pagan and Christian principles mix together in a gallimaufry of festivities from Oct 31st from beginning to end of November 5th, each and every one of which emerge both to confront the dominance of the dark and to celebrate in its secrecy.

In addition, the celebration of Samhain marks one of the two illustrious records of the Celtic time today. This is the motive why the Celts have separated the year into two times of year which is specifically the light and the dark period. A number of people accept as factual that Samhain was the more momentous celebration, representing the start of a whole new sequence, straight away as the Celtic day commence on at night. For it was understood that in dark silence appear whisperings of new initial growth, the rousing of the plant underneath the soil.

 As far as everyone can remember, Halloween was a celebration when kids would run around dressed in costume and would ask candies from house to house. In Ireland, where Halloween started the first jack-o'-lanterns, these were not made of squash or pumpkins. Surprisingly, these were made out of potatoes, turnips, rutabagas, or even beets. Furthermore, there is an old 18th century Irish tale with reference to a man called Stingy Jack who was too parsimonious to get into heaven and had participate too many tricks on the devil to go to hell. When he departed this life, he had to saunter the earth, carrying a lantern that was made out of a turnip with a blazing coal within. Stingy Jack turned out to be known as 'Jack of the Lantern', or 'Jack-o'-lantern as we know today.

From this fairy tale came the Irish custom of putting jack-o'-lanterns made of turnips and other vegetables in windows or by doors on Halloween. The jack-o'-lanterns on their front door that are supposed to frighten away Stingy Jack and each and every one of the other souls that are said to stroll the earth on that same eerie night. In modern times the custom was pass on to the United States by Irish settlers in the late 1800's that pumpkins since they found that pumpkins were plentiful in the fields.

Some Irish tradition such as these has been passed to many countries around the world. It is a fact that knowing these traditions would make you really come home for the festivities, the celebration or to simply remind yourself where it all began.