After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - Irish Origins of Halloween

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Pumpkins, trick or treating and ghost stories are what we associate with Halloween, but what about turnips, fairies and a fortune-telling cake? Anthony and Maddy are joined by historian Dan Snow, and host of sister podcast Dan Snow’s History Hit. They go in search of the origins of Halloween, rooted on the island of Ireland, in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, when the harvest ends and winter looms.The trio try Barmbrack cake, a fruit loaf filled with charms that foretell the fate of the consumer, and Dan speaks to food historian Dr Regina Sexton about the traditionalSamhain practices that inform our present Halloween customs. Meanwhile, Maddy and Anthony discover the historic Irish folklore of the ‘three worlds’, and the ghouls and fairies that occupy them, with Dr Kelly Fitzgerald. You can discover more at Ireland.com/homeofhalloweenProduced by Charlotte Long, Mariana Des Forges, Freddy Chick, edited by Tom Delargy, Dougal Patmore and the production coordinators were Beth Donaldson and Peta Stamper.

On Midsummer Eve, when the bonfires are lighted on every hill in honor of St. John, the fairies are at their gayest, and sometimes steal away beautiful mortals to be their brides. But on November Eve, Samhain, or Halloween, the fairies are at their gloomiest. For, according to the old Gaelic reckoning, this is the first night of winter. The night the fairies of the other world dance with the ghosts, the puka is abroad,

and witches make their spells. It's a dark night, and there's a chill in the air. The breeze moves through the dank woodland in the old west of Ireland. Through the trees, there is an opening. Figures gathered around two huge bonfires. They're celebrating the end of harvest time. This was a gruelling few weeks of collecting

all of the produce they've grown throughout the year. They're marking the end of the lighter months, welcoming with some trepidation the darkness to come, and the threats of illness and starvation, or even death, that comes with it. It's at this time of year, so they believe, the division between this world and the other world is at its thinnest. The spirits of the deceased can move back and forth over the divide.

Now they are ready to greet and welcome their dead ancestors. Some wear costumes so they can disguise themselves from harmful spirits. This is the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, and this is where Halloween began. Hello and welcome to After Dark, Myths, Misteeds and the Paranormal as ever. I am Anthony Delaney and I am Maddie Pelling. And today we are joined by none other than the boss man himself. We're on Our Best Behaviour. It's Dan Snow. If this is your best behaviour, I don't want to see your worst. There are knives here.

I've got a witch's hat on. I know. It's terrifying. I feel like I should say some Irish here. So, Fóill trháiróit, Dan, agus Maddie, which means welcome, Dan and Maddie. This is your own podcast, so you don't need to welcome you. But I'm infusing some Irish in here because in front of us, we have turnips and pumpkins and bar and brach and all kinds of things. And we're going to be talking about the significance of all of these things throughout this episode. Maddie and I will be discussing some of our own Halloween traditions along with Dan, but we'll also

be talking to Kelly Fitzgerald. And Kelly Fitzgerald is an expert on folklore, on oral histories, and she is going to be telling us something about the pagan pre-Christian origins of Samhain in Ireland and how that has influenced Halloween all across the world. So this is not the American commercialisation that we might think it is. It's something far more rooted in ancient history. And it was such a surprise to me that that history actually originates in the island of Ireland. We'll associate Halloween with trick or treating, kids overdoing it when it comes to the sugar,

but I talked to Regina Sexton, who's a culinary historian, she tells me all about how the food traditions of Halloween, of Samhain, and how gift-giving, mischief-making, going door to door, that's all very much part of it. Throughout this episode we are going to be carving, not pumpkins, but turnips. Anthony, are these big enough to carve? Are these what we'd expect if we came to Ireland for Halloween? No, we've got much better turnips in Ireland, that has to be said. I didn't know I was going to be here as a turnip ambassador, but here we are nonetheless. But yeah, these are kind of puny turnips in Ireland, that's to be said. I didn't know I was going to be here as a turnip ambassador, but here we are nonetheless.

But yeah, these are these are kind of puny turnips, but we are going to work with what we have. The reason that we have turnips rather than pumpkins is this is the origin of the pumpkin, right? I don't mean in terms of biological origin. I mean, in terms of folkloric origin, we would have these in Ireland. Think bigger. They're kind of like the size of an actual pumpkin. We'd cut the top off, scoop out the insides, put some kind of a face on the outside, and then light a candle inside.

And this was to ward off evil spirits. We did this even when we were kids, when I was a kid. So this was in the 80s and 90s as well. So there's a really, really long tradition. And so that's before pumpkin carving was a thing in the States. No, I'm not saying when you were a kid, of course, but that tradition stretches. The OG pumpkin carving is actually turnip carving in Ireland. Contrary to popular belief, I do not date from the 18th century, but this is all...

You do have a sort of vibe. Listen, I'm not going to dispute this. But this all dates back to immigration from Ireland and then immigration into the United States. Obviously, there's a huge Irish community there, and they have taken the idea of carving the turnip adapted it to what was more plentiful there, i.e pumpkins. And so now we have this very possibly more aesthetically pleasing but definitely less frightening. So therefore I think the pumpkins are the turnips are better. And less authentic we now learn.

Less authentic, arguably better Halloween colours though it has to be said. Controversial potentially. Traitor. Right. Should we start carving folks? Let's do it. I'm scared of this. I actually don't know what I'm doing. You've given me a mighty knife here. Can you even get the thing off? No. Are you two going in freehand or do you have a plan? I feel like I'm going to mark you now. Plan? Oh, she's marking her. I'm taking it seriously. So it's actually, we've got some food here to eat as well because as I've learned from Regina Sexn, who's a historian, there's all sorts of special cuisine attached to Samhain in Ireland as well. So I think we're going to be learning a little bit about barnbraak and if you're unfamiliar

with barnbraak, it's kind of a cakey, bready thing and it is delicious, right? When I was a kid I didn't really like it, it was more of an adult Halloween thing. Oh my God, my carving is diabolical. Is this the cake where there's stuff hidden inside it? Oh yes. And so you might get a ring, right? And if you got a ring that the cake where there's stuff hidden inside it? Oh yes. And so you might get a ring, right? And if you got a ring that meant, so it's all about divination. If you got the ring, you'd be like, right, you're going to get married that year.

Or yeah, it's a good thing at least. Guess what else you could get though? Wooden coffins. And tell me, what does that mean? Dead. You're going to die in the next 12 months. We talked to Kelly Fitzgerald, who's the head, Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald, who's the head of folklore and other things at the School of also folklore at University College Dublin. Yeah, other things.

One of the things that I loved in our conversation with Kelly actually was the way that she talked about storytelling at this time of year and how, you know, we think about Halloween's this time when the dark is drawing in, the nights are drawing in, and we are here carving these turnips that traditionally, as you said, Anthony, would have embers from the fire in, and they're a way to bring in a little bit of light as well as some fear to your home. And Kelly talked about how in the past in Ireland, people who'd been working agriculturally in the fields, really laboring away, would bring comfort into their home. And storytelling was a way of getting to grips with the changes of the year, which is just such a lovely thing. And I do think there's something comforting about horror. There's

something comforting about this fear. When you're snug in by your hearth with your family, there may be something a bit comforting about telling yourself that beyond that door, beyond those thick walls, it's a dangerous one. Can you eat raw turnip? We're about to find out. So here's our chat with Kelly Fitzgerald. Kelly, we're so lucky to have you.

Welcome to After Dark. Hi, Anthony. Hi, Maddie. So lovely to meet you. So this is a question I'm very delighted to have to ask. Take us back to ancient Ireland. I wish I could say that to more people more often. But why is Samhain such an important date in the year at this particular moment in time?

When we think of Halloween, even in its earliest times, our evidence is found in the literature that talks about the two of the Dhanan, these magical mystical beings that are possessing this island, that they're holding the sovereignty of Ireland at the time, and Samhain is the time of the year that they are able to win their battles, play their tricks, and draw the natural world that has this preternatural supernatural element. It allows them to carry out what they need to do and elements of that mischievousness, that magic, that mysticism has remained with us to this day.

So Kelly, this is a time of year when, as you say, the supernatural and the natural worlds are coming very close to each other in these interesting ways. But for those of us who didn't grow up in the Irish tradition, I find this a little bit complicated because we're not just dealing with the living world and the world of the dead, as we might expect if we engage with Halloween traditions elsewhere in the world, but there are multiple other worlds, aren't there, in the Irish tradition. So can you tell us a little bit about the layout, the landscape of those other worlds and how they interconnect? Halloween is a really wonderful, interesting time here in Ireland and in some ways perhaps

why it has had such a strength to it is that not only is this grounded in the natural world in how we as humans express ourselves and our creativity and mark the year. But it is the other world, this one is supernatural tradition that is constant in the Irish landscape, that is parallel to this world but shall never be this world. And then finally, this is the time of year that we have the world of the dead. And in Roman Catholic tradition, where purgatory was such an important part of the belief system, this was a time of year when All Souls Day is happening just after Halloween, and people are preparing for that third element to come back into the world as well.

And what makes Halloween so interesting and wonderful and fascinating is that we're seeing these three worlds come together and have a bit of fun. Now as we look at the world around us this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, you know, the autumn colors, the world is dying around us, we are coming into the darkness, we are entering into our darkest days of the year, and so we have that other world connection and what that can do. But interestingly enough, this is of course that time of the dead. And in folk traditions and in Ireland, they would not confuse the other world with the world of the dead. In Roman Catholicism, purgatory stayed

very strong, a very strong belief system of purgatory. And November 1st is the All Souls Day, so the Church has really taken this time of the year to emphasize that those kind of your ancestors are coming back. and we have these wonderful traditions of people really cleaning the house and preparing for their ancestors to come back into it and we see those traditions when we think of Diaz Los Martos and Mexico and other places being connected to that sense of Purgatory as well. We then have the other world and of course everything is better in the other world, right? The food tastes better, the music sounds better, everything is just better. But of course in folk traditions they have to have a check-and-balance system because if it's better then everyone

would just want to go there. So they may have that life but those beings, these kind of fairy beings, will never make it to heaven. So they may have this great life, but they will never have the afterlife. And so you can see this kind of way in which these traditions can play out, that you can tease yourself with them, you can kind of engage with it. You don't want to be lost there forever, you don't want to become a changeling. They can bring you great stuff. They can make you a great musician.

They can make you a great hurling player, but they can also make your life really miserable as well. Well, they never gifted me with any hurling ability, and I'm from Kakenny. So they need to up their game a little bit on that. But just just to and Kelly, correct me if I'm wrong. At any point during this, I just want to do a little bit of a summation of these three worlds that we're talking about. We have our world that we're living on a daily basis where, you know, if we're talking about, let's say, the 19th century

or prior to the 19th century, people are toiling, people are working or at least the working people are. And there's a kind of a sometimes a grim reality to that life. Then there's the other world that you have spoken about, Kelly, which is infused with magic and fairies and sprites. And these beings that are mischievous, potentially magical, definitely have powers and can have power over us. And then there's the world of the dead and the other world, by the way, that fairy world is kind of always there. But the world of the dead, once Christianity starts to become involved, can only move closer to the real world, our world, at a specific time of the year. And that specific time of year is Samhain. How did I do, Kelly? Does that does that kind of sum it up? Anthony, that's great. I think it's our time that the natural world kind of marks or commemorates

the world of the dead and that separation from a kind of fairy being from a ghost. So again, in Irish tradition, the fairy world are not ghosts. They are not souls coming back. If we think of American, the American impact on Halloween, they've conflated these three worlds into two worlds. And I think that it's really important to emphasize that this Irish tradition has this parallel world that's ever present. And then it is at Halloween and at the 1st of May, which are two days directly across from each other,

that the veil is very thin and then particularly then at Halloween that veil is very thin and we're also recognizing the souls of the departed being present as well, which I think has given a kind of validated or given a strength to why traditions at this time of year have stayed so strong and have had a kind of greater international impact as opposed to other days in the year. It's absolutely fascinating to me to hear all this because as someone who's grown up in the English tradition of Halloween, which of course in recent decades has been absolutely Americanised,

this is alien to me, this idea of the three worlds rather than these two, the living and the dead. What I'm wondering, Kelly, is we have this great tradition of storytelling and mythology and these different ways of understanding the world that are also linked to the church in Ireland and how all of these dogma are attached to them. But how did Samhain operate for ordinary people? Antony alluded there to, for example, the 19th century, ordinary people working in the fields, later working in factories. What kind of practices do ordinary Irish people engage with in order to engage with Samhain? Or is this just a sort of story that you might hear down the pub or in the church porch after a service? Are there specific things that

people are doing outside of their daily lives? Calendar, customs and special days of the year are really important. And particularly when you're thinking of a traditional society that's really based around the agricultural year. This is the end of the harvest and the harvest is hard work. And it is that time that you almost can exhale and you can relax. And that sense of mischievousness coming into it now is that time to release things.

And this is a real time for young people, a time that allows them to be different, to pull pranks, to get away with pulling pranks. Again, how society kind of sets itself up to what can happen on this day that would not be allowed on any other day. Now, in the Irish tradition, when we think of these kind of masking or mumming or geysers or fancy dress, that's really the beginning of that because when you look at the fuller year

in the Irish tradition, we have the Christmas mummers and the Wren Boys on St. Stephen's Day. And even in traditional society, going to Bridget's Day with the Biddy Boys, fancy dress is a part of the winter time in Ireland. It's also the beginning of storytelling time as well. Of course, during the harvest and when there's work to be done,

you're not idling around in the fire, listening to stories that could take hours to tell. So now this is that time to say, look, this is what we can do now. We kind of come in and again, love this time of the year when the darkness is coming by three o'clock in the afternoon, there's no direct sunlight anymore. All of that is really dire. But you can see how society has kind of set it up so that you expect it

and you make the most of it and you kind of take it to your advantage in our living. Okay, so we've got the dressing up element that we might recognise and participate in today, but we're missing the trick and treating element a little bit here, Kelly. You've hinted at it already, but tell us some of the things that people would do in order to ward off these spirits. Does this element of trickery have any other function within the communities that it's practised or is it simply to create a barrier or mischief with these other worlds? In some ways you could see that you're dressed up, you're fancy dressed, and similarly even if you

think of the 26th of December, which is St Stephen's Day in Ireland, people would go around and perform and they'd be given food or drink or money. So that exchange for a bit of performance, you've gone to this effort and you deserve something for it, is a bit of Halloween as well. But at Halloween, there's that threat, you know, this threat that if you don't give us, literally, you either give me something or I will pull a trick on you. Right? So that sense of it could be water down the chimney, you know, pulling up your cabbages, just causing a little bit of damage that would be annoying, you know, not unbelievable, but annoying. And that adds to the fun

of the day as well. So if we think of the trick or treating, that's part of it. Also this sense of divination. Again, this is a day where the world is not quite the same as it is in the other day. So when you see how that is expressed in the way in which people act, they see ways in which weather divination happens

on this day as opposed to other days. It's a day of weather divination happens on this day, as opposed to other days. It's a day of marriage divination, the way in which your life is going to be. So all of those elements kind of contribute and you can play it on that. Like the supernatural can play tricks on humans. And this is that time of the year that humans can play tricks on each other as well. If anybody's wondering why I ended up being so dramatic, the answer lies in growing up in Ireland. This is the most dramatic landscape that you'll ever find.

There's people hopping around the place that you can't even see, that you have to spread salt in your head to mind and everything is just absolutely bonkers, but brilliantly bonkers. Kelly, we have this perception or some people have this perception, let's say, that a lot of how we understand Halloween now is American and comes from America. And you mentioned the pumpkin already. But of course, the pumpkin even has a bit of a history. And that history is a turnip. Why has America taken up all the Irish customs that we came across with through a long history of emigration and immigration into the United States.

Why is this one really taken hold in America, do you think? It's interesting when we think of how Halloween has really taken off in America. And I would argue when we think of America, autumn there is not even called autumn anymore. They have called it fall. What is absolutely happening around them, they're so conscious of it. On the one hand, it feels like England, it feels like these islands, it is called New England. But yet, when leaves start turning color, they are so much more intense than we have on this side of the water. And I think it's really interesting that when new communities were moving to the new world,

they were seeing what felt familiar, but then even what they saw intensified things. Now, I would argue, again, traditionally Halloween would have been much stronger in England as well. If you probably think of your childhood, Anthony, you might remember the bonfires at this time of the year as well. The bonfires are really important. Interestingly enough, in England, Halloween is not for bonfires, but Guy Fawkes Day is. And so in some ways you can see how when traditions change, when the relevance changes and what people are celebrating,

they're getting the same thing out of what they would have gotten at a different time, but it has a different premise around it. So we see that perhaps in America as well, that Halloween could have been much stronger amongst all migrants in the diaspora there at the time. But then we also have that puritanical side in America that really started to emphasize the world of the dead and that sense of being caught by that world in what was going to happen to you. And it's not so much, you know, this kind of hell and damnation and that kind of more evil side that

we see to Halloween. We don't find that in the Irish traditions, but we see that definitely reflecting back from the American interpretation of this time of the year. That's been absolutely fantastic, Kelly. Thank you so much for telling us this. That was a fascinating chat, wasn't it? I'm so struck by the fact that this Irish tradition rooted in paganism has survived and flourished and metamorphosised so much in North America. When everything we think of as Irish culture in North America is very Catholic, there's a particular identity, but actually it turns out this is one of the biggest legacies of migration and it's a much deeper past. Yeah, but it also speaks to the kind of coexistence of that Catholicism that you're talking about,

Dan, with the pagan past in Ireland and how those two traditions sit side by side. Kelly spoke about fall and how fall has influenced Halloween because basically what's available in America. Because America is so colourful and I think that's why there was a shift from the turnip to the pumpkin because it just matches those incredible four colours that you get, especially on the East Coast of America at this time of year. Now I will say these they're looking pretty good so far they don't smell great raw and for me Halloween is really all about eating tasty sugary treats. Dan don't you agree? Have you never been trick-or-treating and

filled a bucket full of chocolate? Oh, I certainly have, and I assumed that trick-or-treating was the result of our 20th century explosion, and explosion in the amount of different ways we have to get sugar into our body, but it turns out, talking to the excellent Regina Sexton, that trick-or-treating is very ancient and rooted in Ireland. is very ancient and rooted in Ireland. Regina, what do people believe happens at Samhain? I suppose for Irish people celebrating Halloween or Samhain, it's possibly one of the most anticipated festivals in Ireland after Christmas. And it's I suppose because lots of us have memories of

activities when we were children and a lot of those centered around not just food but also games and merriment and mischief and so on. In more recent times I suppose that has been kind of what you might say colonized by a more commercial aspect to things which have to some degree changed practice and so on. But that's the dynamic of culture if you like. Where does Samhain come from? How far back should we look for its genesis? Gosh, well now that is the question and Samhain as you say is two things I suppose really. Samhain is the Irish word for the month of November but also Saán is the name that was given to one of the quarter festivals that is associated

with what you might think of the Celtic year if you want. So the Celtic year had two big festivals one of them was Saán which is the end of October, the 31st of October, into the 1st of November, and the other one was Biaultona, which is the end of April, the 1st of May, and then you have two minor festivals dividing those two halves of the year. We hear about these Celtic festivals from a lot of the Roman writers because the Romans would have come in contact with what you might call a Celtic culture or a Celtic civilization, a Celtic way of life. It's also mentioned to some extent, we're kind of skipping on a bit in time now, but it's also mentioned

to some extent in the literature that comes out of Ireland in the early medieval period, the later medieval period. And for us in Ireland those dates are between around the 5th to the 12th centuries and a bit beyond. But then what happens in Ireland is that you also get descriptions and references to the festivities around this time of the year from a lot of the antiquarian writers, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Tell me more about some of those folkloric accounts in the 19th century. What do they describe happening? Well, what they describe happening, I suppose, is a kind of a mixture

of all of that past, if you want. So it's all sorts of intersections between maybe memory and legacy and trying to go back to the past and so on and taking from the past to create a sort of a sense of this festival. In Ireland a lot of that would have been associated in the late 19th century with this idea of Celtic revival which was connected to a cultural revival if you like that was linked to an Irish identity. So essentially what it is, is a mix of fun and games with sort of some connection to the idea that this festival, which kind of spans between the sun going down on the 31st of October

and the sun going down on the 1st of November, this 24 hour period between dusk and dusk, there's some sort of folk idea there that it's not just associated with fun and feasting, but there's also some connection to another cosmos, to the other world if you like. And for Irish people that other world would be, again, this is a whole kind of concentrated knot of cultural complexity, it's connected to religious belief and folk belief. Now perhaps the food is less contested than some of the theology. Tell me about the famous

food traditions. Food is really interesting at Halloween because it plays several different roles. So the first thing is that you do try to have a special festive collection of foods for the celebrations. You have the overlap between Christian belief and folk belief. The following day is All Saints Day, it's a holy day. So in Catholic observance, the day before Holy Days is observed as a non-meat-eating day. So the first point is that the food and the dishes associated with Halloween are non-meat. So they're all vegetable plant-based, if you like, in a sort of a contemporary way of talking about it. So in Irish custom the two big things

associated with Halloween are the non-meat dish of Culcannon so that's sort of the savoury dish and then the sweeter dish of the Halloween bread which is a barn-brack and the Culcannon is mashed potatoes that's mixed in with a cooked brassica, a cooked member of the cabbage family and that can be cabbage or kale, curly kale, different types of kale and so on, or just simply cabbage in various different forms. So you cook the cabbage first, you make mashed potatoes and you mix the two of them together. So that's the Halloween dish, kulcannon. And then the sweet dish is the barnbraak. The barnbraak is either a yeast leavened bread, barnbraak,

or else it can also be interpreted as a sweet and enriched soda bread, which is made with bicarbonate of soda rather than a yeast leveling agent. So they're essentially the two big dishes for Halloween in Ireland. I'm getting so hungry sitting here talking about this now. As well as being delicious, how do they reflect what's going on generally?

These are special foods. If you think about Culcannon, what it has, and particularly if you think about a rural economy in Ireland, and also maybe for people who were less well off, the Culcannon is made distinctive not just by the base ingredients but also by the addition of liberal quantities of melted butter because that melts into the mashed potatoes, it makes it really good and of course fat has all the flavour and so on and so on. So fat is making this dish special. The sugar and the fruit additions to the soda bread or the barmbrach if you're buying it makes it special as well, that sweetness element.

So there's a specialness in terms of the ingredients but there's also a specialness in terms of the functions of these two dishes at Halloween. So they're not just to enjoy in a sensual way because they taste really good but also they function for different purposes at Halloween and the two big functions of Culcannon and Barn Brack is for divination, divining the future. So you can tell the future with these two dishes and you can tell the future specifically by reading the charms that you find that are incorporated into the Culcannon or the Barmbrack.

So for the Culcannon, for example, one of the practices was to put into it or hide in it a gold ring or a wedding ring. So that was the easy one. Everybody would get a bowl of Culcannon and part of the fun was to see who would get the gold ring in their Culcannon, obviously without having any accident of choking or whatever. So if you got the ring, it meant that you would be married within the year. Okay, so that's all very pleasant, that's for divining the future. But then when it came to the barnbrak, this was a bit more complicated because there was a whole variety of charms that were baked into the bread.

So you did have the ring and this is what I remember from my childhood it's a bit different now so you did have the ring but you also had things like a pea, a bean, a rag, a stick and each of these charms signify different things so the ring in the bomb rack could either be like it was in the Colcannon, it could be that you would marry within the year, but also these charms had fluidity in how you could interpret them so the ring could also mean that you would live the longest or you would be the first to die. The pea meant poverty if you got that

and the bean would mean riches or it could also mean that you would cross water, that you would emigrate. The thimble, if that was baked into the bread, could mean that you would either be a tailor or a dressmaker or else you could be a spinster. And if finding them and defining the future, each of them sort of connects to, I suppose, the society of the time and what was important for the society of the time, you know, women getting married, having a good profession, the fear of being poor, joining the church being a priest or a nun, the religious orders or emigration. And if you think about Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries, these are all social facts, I suppose, really, that have consequence and meaning for people's

lives. You know, marriage and good marriages, death. Heading across the seas. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Now, speaking of heading across the seas, many of the traditions that we associate with, I'll say, quite American Halloween now, I didn't realize, are very Irish. And let's start with pumpkin carving. Tell me about the beginnings of that. There is evidence of carving turnips, not just in Ireland but also in England and in Scotland and in Wales. So in all likelihood, this is an idea that would have travelled with people to America, not just in Irish grouping, I suppose. But there is a custom of just hollowing out

a Swede turnip or a Swede turnip. So you hollow that out and then you carve a face on it. And that's used as a lantern. I think you call them maybe Jack-o-Lanterns in England and in America as well. And that was supposed to kind of light the way, I suppose, really, particularly in Halloween when it's associated with this fairy activity or activity from the other world.

So this was kind of light, light the way and to keep you safe in that sort of context of uncertainty. And that evolved into the pumpkins that we carve all across the world today. Yeah, I mean, there is this kind of idea that the turnip was replaced by the pumpkin because the pumpkin looks much better. I mean, it's got that beautiful vibrant colour and it might be a little bit easier to carve. You know, the flesh is a bit softer and you get this spectacular looking orange head once

the work is done. But in more recent years, I suppose, in the last maybe five years, there's been kind of a revival in Ireland of carving a swede turnip. So you have to hollow out that and that's a bit difficult to do because the interior is very hard and you can carve out the eyes into the nose and the mouth and all sorts of stuff and put a candle in that and they look fairly bad and fairly frightening you know. I think they look better myself actually. I'm going to make my kids engage their Irish heritage now and carve turnips this year that's going to be great. I'll just give you a hint that is probably not very traditional, but if you've got a melon scooper for making melon balls, that kind of kitchen tool,

that makes carving a sweet turnip really easy. I've done it myself. Yeah, because it's that time of year when the kids are allowed finally to get all the kitchen knives and everything gets a bit loose, makes me a bit nervous. So okay, thank you for that. And what about the ultimate thing we associate with Halloween, but turns out has got its origins on as well, which is trick or treating. Yeah, and this, I suppose, is what children look forward to for the most part, and I think it was this sense of kind of just being set loose out on the streets, or set loose on the country roads, and children went from house to house asking for donations for a kind of a party that happened at the end of the night. And not just the children but also the teenagers saw this 24-hour period, particularly when it gets dark on

Halloween night, as a period for complete mischief and disarray and social disorder in many ways, you know, and they played big tricks on local communities, taking gates off, throwing cabbage stumps against the door and running away and all sorts of stuff. So it's not just confined to the children in terms of collecting, in that it does venture into the kind of those teenage years and so on. And likewise for the games that the girls played in the small cabbage gardens, like pulling cabbages and just looking at the root of the cabbage to determine the character of their future husbands. So there's all of this thing, which extends to the children's games as well.

So it is a night generally of mischief and disarray and fun. My grandmother, my Welsh nine, remembers as kids, it was very much bar the doors and the streets in that kind of respectable early to mid-20th century British world, the streets became raucous and riotous and it was a time when respectable folks stayed inside and very much kept themselves themselves and drew the shutters. And that's the sense as well that comes through from the folklore accounts from Ireland in that it was kind of a free-for-all that night. Nothing very bad but you know there was that kind of thing of mischief and

disarray that was associated with us. Wasn't that a fascinating chat? It really was and you know what I am so keen to try some of this cake now. Well you're going to get some and I don't know if this, have we got little coffins and bullets and rings in this one? No health and safety won't let me. I'm actually quite glad because the last thing I need is I'm chopping this with the turnip knife so you'll forgive me. Oh that looks good. It's going to taste turnipy. Oh thank you. Shops around that. Checking there's no coffins in here just in case. Thank you. A raisin.

What does that signify, Anthony? Dried fruit. Irish speaker. Translator. Hey, you know what? It's really good. As he talks with his mouth full, my mother is losing all her senses. You're embarrassing all of Ireland right now, Anthony.

Well, there's a good brambrach. You know what? You need to spread on that. A good dollop of Kerrygold butter. Do you know what? You do that. I just think of that. But you know what? That was made by Mariana, the producer. Who is Croatian? What a world.

Wow. Ah. What a world. International cuisine. I know. No, I actually like this. I'm going to eat the whole thing. I'm going to eat the whole thing. Folks, this is not a prop. It's getting eaten right now. So, Anthony, talking of great Irish exports and traditions,

a little shout out to Kerrybutter there. Tell me a little bit about the parades that happen at Halloween because I've looked online I have googled and the costuming, the puppeteering is incredible. Is it Mockness? Is that one of them? So Mockness is in Galway. I'm not in Ireland for Halloween this year. I'm here in the UK but that is where I would be going if I could. It is... Will you take me one year please? No, no, this is the end of our relationship. Oh, that's a shame.

This is a real theatrical feast. It is so exciting. It shows the best of Irish craft. It shows the best of Irish making, the best of Irish theatre, but it's also situated in Galway, which is just an incredible city. It's so incredible.

So yes, we must go some year. Let's go for After Dark, actually, some year. Dan, I don't know if you've ever visited Derry, but Derry is- Many times. So Derry is also known for its Halloween parades. We bring out the Puka at this time of year. Sorry, I'll stop you. What's that? A Puka is a ghost. So the Puka festival, which you'll find in Ireland as well, that is one of the things that we celebrate. Not the other world, because remember the other world is the fairy, but the puka is moving closer to the dead as we come to all souls and all saints. I'm really shocked because there's a big, there's a real narrative here in the UK, isn't

it, that Halloween is this foreign American festival, it's another symbol of our sort of cultural subservience to the Americans. So why don't we take great pride in the fact that actually it's far from far closer to home? Why don't we take great pride that it actually this is something to celebrate that is from these islands? Yeah, I mean, and even in Ireland, we're having a real resurgence in that. So if you want to get an authentic Halloween experience, even Maddy and I, we've always talked about going to Salem.

We're like, oh, let's go and have this authentic Halloween experience. But there's this Gaelic revival happening in Ireland at the moment. We're calling it the second Gaelic revival. One happened at the turn of the 20th century. It's happening again now. The language is starting to come back into use more so people on TikTok are speaking, even broken Irish just to be using the language again. But the Halloween traditions such as Mokhna, such as the Puka, such as the parades across the country,

they are really showing the origins of where this festival comes from, the Celtic, the pagan origins, and how we are getting back to the land a little bit with that as opposed to it being so commercial. So, Ansi, you mentioned Puka there. What does that word mean? So Puka is Irish for ghost, and you'll often find the word Puka in Irish place names. So Pál na fúca is the hole of the ghosts, for instance. So you'll find it in different places around the country. But I want to point out there is a difference between the Puka is the hole of the ghosts, for instance. So you'll find it in different places around the country. But I want to point out there is a difference between the Puka, the world the Puka comes from, and the world the Banshee comes from. And, Madi, I don't know if you

remember, but earlier, in the very early days of After Dark, we spoke to Derry Girl actress and friend of mine, the lovely Shafomisweene, and we had a bit of a discussion about what exactly the Banshee was. ?Maria, I'm just wondering, what do you know about Banshees from your perspective, having come from outside Ireland? To me, a Banshee is a little bit like a mermaid, maybe? I have been reliably informed that is not the case and that they are not necessarily coastal. I also know that they're, I want to say specifically an Irish thing. It's something I'm guessing the pair of you grew up with in a way that I didn't in England. Is that fair?

And what do you think, Siobhán? Well, the way I mean, it's a really good question whether it's uniquely Irish. Ban she basically, you know, is Gaelic for fairy woman. Ban woman she of the fairies. So I don't know, maybe it's in Scotland as well. Yeah. Do you know, I think it is kind of uniquely Irish and that it's linked directly to the Tuad Da Danann. To the families. Well, it's linked directly to the families and we'll get to that in just a second. But

it's the Tuad Da Danann and if you don't know what the Tuat Adhanan is, it's basically this kind of pre-Christian fairy folk that surreptitiously ruled Ireland. It was almost kind of folkloric and religious in its own sense and it was this kind of army of fairy people basically who were manipulating the climate, who were manipulating all different types of things and the Banshee comes from that kind of, that mythology. And there was a Lannan Shi'a who was the spirit of life. And then the Banshee was the spirit of death. And so there is this death associated. So I do think it's actually even more specific than Celticism. I think it is Irish in that, because it's linked so specifically to the two of

them. Yeah, I mean, my understanding of it is actually not even as a woman, just as a wailing noise. So the sound is really important. Yeah, really, really important. So you hear her before you see her. You hear her. Okay, okay. It's actually, I think, like, you almost try to block your ears.

So if you don't hear it, it's a way of. Yeah. Oh my God. I did that as a child. Did you? Yeah, because I was on the border of sanity, probably for 98 percent of my childhood. On the border of Kilkenny, I thought. On the border of Kilkenny and Leash, I was. But I do remember being in my bed with the bedclothes pulled up with the fingers in the ears. And the things. Can anyone say anxiety?

But honestly, that I do remember going, no, we're not hearing this. I don't care what's going on. We're not hearing it because she was just around like, I think that probably helps if you've got a bit of an imagination. But like she seemed to be quite present. She did. And I think perhaps uniquely rural. Certainly. Yeah. With the wind maybe coming in through drafts or whatever.

Yeah, the fact that she would be a woman or a fairy woman, it was only ever the voice that struck terror. I think and that's interesting, right, because that's an our generation thing, I think, because in like the 19th century, it was very much a visual as well. Right. So it was a particular type of woman. So the long and my great grandmother was alive when I was born. I remember seeing her and I remember seeing her.

God love her. Now that there's another Irish person in the room, I'm suddenly got into colloquialism. But I remember seeing her and she had long silver hair down to beneath her bone. Right. And I remember going, I am not going near that woman because she's obviously clearly a warning of death. And she did die. Yeah.

I love her. But that's neither. Did you say you're great great? No, one great. OK. Maybe I did say great great, but she was my great-grandma. My my granny's. Fantastic.

And your great-grandmother. Not. Yeah, yeah. Great-grandmother. She was a great great grandmother. Okay, so the Banshee is part of this fairy alternate world that has sort of tangible effects on real life. It's interesting to say that alternate world because for the people who believed in the

two it wasn't alternate. It was very much intertwined with how they experienced everyday life. So it was it was kind of far more present than we would even think of religion as being now, or people who kind of follow certain religious beliefs. But we were talking about like listening out first. But actually, you'd be wasting your time slightly because the legend went that only certain families could hear her. OK, so talk to me about that. Well, I'll list you some of the families. And you can see if you recognize any of these names.

And if you're listening in with any of these surnames, try not to get too freaked out. But if you're McCarthy, a McGraw, an O'Neill, an O'Reilly, an O'Sullivan, an O'Riordan, O'Flaherty's, essentially any families that begin with O's or Mucs are the people that she follows around. And during the research for this, I found out that the old iteration of my name was O'Delaney. Oh really?

Yeah, well O'Duffloina in Irish. No, O'Reilly. And because I initially went looking for you, I was like, I bet you she's after Chabaud and so on. And the Macs are in there. Well, the Macs, yeah, and O'Neils, that's my mother's line. So yeah, and McCarthy and O'Sullivan I think, yeah. Dan, do you have any of your own Halloween traditions? I do now. I'm going to eat this bread and I'm going to carve tulips for you guys. Every year until we're dead, yeah. That's quite haunting in itself. Absolutely.

Every year until we're dead. And then perhaps after we're dead. Yes. That's quite haunting in itself. Absolutely. Coming here until we're dead. And then perhaps after we're dead as well. That's what I've learned today. Irish Halloween, Irish childhood Halloween traditions, right? What we used to do was dress up in black plastic bags. Did you do that here? Not so much the plastic bags. I would go as a witch every single year.

I think we would go to Argos and get clothes. Fancy. No, we dressed up in black plastic bags, bin bags, and then we just had like pound shop masks. I was always Dracula in a black plastic bag. And then trick or treating around the local area, you get loads of things. Monkey nuts, is that a thing that you have here? Ah lads, monkey nuts, you need to check out monkey nuts if you don't get them. We get those in the bags and then we do some apple bobbing. Ugh! And then fireworks, but they're illegal in Ireland. We just did dressing up.

They used to have that foam, like kids, that crazy foam, which we would spray. The spray spider swabs. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that was good. I reread all of MR James Ghost stories every year. Right, even as a child. Yeah, I started reading them really young, probably inappropriately young actually. They're quite frightening.

Did you trick or treat? No, not so much. We didn't do inappropriately young actually, they're quite frightening. Did you trick or treat? No, not so much. We didn't do that. Oh God, look at this one. I was at home reading a book. She's indoors reading Gothic literature. And look where that has got me. Did you trick or treat?

Did you go to house? Yeah, we tricked. Well, my mum's Canadian, so we, little did I know that I was actually channeling my Irish born dad's tradition. But we thought we were doing what my Canadian mother in brought up doing, which was going around the neighbourhood. In the 80s in London, lots of people still thought you were a bit weird doing it. I mean, trick-or-treating was not a thing. And so we'd bang on neighbours' doors and they'd be like, what is going on with these children? Now I think it's much more normal.

It's more acceptable now. Twice, I've taken my kids to engage their Canadian and their Irish heritage, it turns out, in Toronto, in Canada, and that is like a sort of Hollywood movie version. It's like the sort of central casting version. People decorate their houses, they spray things out, like it's chaos, the streets are closed, there's parades, school gets a day off, like it's wild. I love the people who get like the 10 foot tall skeletons and stuff like that, that's so brilliant.

And sort of hands that kind of come out of the lawn and grab you as you go following, it's just out of control. Well lads, if you think that's bad, you need to get yourselves to the west coast of Ireland, all up and down that west coast. Have yourselves a little stay down there and the wind will be blowing, the nights will be dark, the trick or treaters will be out, the music will be playing and the turnips will be lighting in the windows. That is a scary Halloween. That is an atmospheric Halloween that you do not want to miss out. So forget about going to America, forget about going to Canada, go to the west coast of Ireland.

Finally, before we only eat more cake, let's check in on the turnips, Maddie. Oh, look at that. I've come for a little mouth, a little scary mouth. Oh, it's quite, um, Tim Burton-esque. Yeah, that was the vibe, definitely. There isn't any space inside for a candle though. I thought maybe in the eyes, if you followed them a little bit more.

Tiny, tiny. Yeah, not my best work, but it's acceptable. You're very neat, you're over there with a little chisel chiseling about as we were wielding the knife. Okay, well tell me I haven't done a good job. Oh my goodness. See, there's a candle inside, so the eyes are glowing. So it's like a little desiccated human head. It's like one of those mummies that you find like underground in

Sicily or something. Yeah, which is absolutely what I was going for. I fear that Anthony might have won but Dan go on show us yours. Well never miss an opportunity to get the brand out there. I've gone with an HH. And what does that stand for Dan? It stands for Happy Halloween! And what does that stand for Dan? It stands for Happy Halloween! If, like me, you have been absolutely taken in by all of this and you want to go to Ireland and experience this for yourself, Anthony, where can people go to find out more? Ireland. But if that's not directly within your remit, then Ireland.com can show you the way.