Dan Snow's History Hit - The Origins of Halloween

Episode Date: October 22, 2024

Pumpkins, trick or treating and ghost stories are what we associate with Halloween, but what about turnips, fairies and a fortune-telling cake? Dan and hosts of History Hit’s After Dark podcast Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling 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 traditional Samhain 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/homeofhalloween Produced 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 honour 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. Cucca 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. Hi buddy, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. Halloween is fast approaching. Do you know, I was visiting family in Canada recently. I'm reminded how unbelievably seriously people take Halloween in North America. It is a big deal. But the ironic thing is that the roots of Halloween are not in America. They're right here, in this little old archipelago of ours. In particular, the island of Ireland.

And those roots stretch back thousands of years. So to understand Halloween and its history well who am I going to talk to? I'm obviously going to talk to Anthony and Maddie hosts of our spooky true crime podcast After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal. Hi guys. Hi Dan. I feel like I should say some Irish here so forgerot which means welcome. We have been gifted with turnips. The reason 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. The OG pumpkin carving is actually turnip carving in Ireland. These are not Irish turnips. But I'm going to, listen, I'm going to do the job today nonetheless,

because we're professionals. We're going to try and carve something into these. But Dan and I have not got high hopes for this. Maddy's going to do the job today nonetheless, because we're professionals. We're going to try and carve something into these, but Dan and I have not got high hopes for this. Maddie's going to win this. Anthony is genuinely outraged by the size of the turnips. Too small. And Anthony, we'll be finding out during this podcast why we're carving turnips when there are perfectly serviceable pumpkins available.

We're going to be talking about how many of your cherished Halloween traditions are not in fact American. I talked to Regina Sexton who's a culinary historian. She tells me all about the food traditions of Halloween the Irish call Samhain and how gift-giving, mischief-making, going door-to-door stretch back thousands of years. And we spoke to Dr Kelly Fitzgerald who is a folklorist at University College Dublin. And she told us that at Halloween in Ireland, at Samhain, there is not just a veil that separates the living world from the dead world, but actually two other worlds.

Let's get on with it. 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 anticipated, I suppose, because lots of us have memories of activities when we were children. And a lot of those centred 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 colonised 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 Samhain 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 Samhain, which is the end of October, the 31st of October into the 1st of November. And the other one was Bealtaine, which is 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 culture 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 is 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 barmbrack.

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 called cannon and then the sweet dish is the barn brack the barn brack is either a yeast leavenavened bread, barmbrack, 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 levelling 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 and 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 barn brack, 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 Kilcannon and Barnbrack 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 Kilcannon or the Barmbrack. So for the Kilcannon, 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 barmbrack, 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 Barmbrack could either be like it was in the Kilcannon. 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 P 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 um heading Heading across the seas. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Now, speaking of heading across the seas, many of the traditions that we associate with

our sort of quite American Halloween now, I didn't realise, are very Irish. And let's start with pumpkin carving. Tell me about the beginnings of that. There is evidence of carving turnips, 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 an Irish grouping, I suppose. But there is a custom of just hollowing out a Swede turnip or a Suede 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 and 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 on myself, actually. I'm going to make my kids engage with their Irish heritage now and carve turnips this year. That's going to be great. I'll just give you a hint that it's 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 in Ireland 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 the children went from house to house asking for donations for a kind of a party that happened at the end of the night and 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. 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 and 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 there was that kind of thing of mischief and disarray that was associated with us do 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 no health and safety won't let me not allow it i'm actually quite glad oh that looks that looks good. It's going to taste turnipy. Oh, thank you. Chops around that. Checking there's no coffins in here, just in case. Oh, Anthony, what have you got? There you go. A raisin. What does that mean? What does that signify, Anthony?

Dried fruit. Our Irish speaker, translator, knower of things. 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. Ireland is a good barn brack.

You know what? You need to spread on that. A good dollop of Kerrygold butter. You know what? You do that. I was just thinking that. But you know what? That was made by Marianna, the producer,

who is Croatian. International cuisine. I know. No, I actually like this. I'm going to eat the whole thing. So, Anthony, talking of great Irish exports and traditions, 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, and that is, 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 just 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. Dan, I don't know if you've ever visited Derry, but Derry is also known for its Halloween parades.

We bring out the Pooka 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 but the puka is the moving closer to the the dead as we come to all souls and all saints there's a real narrative here in the uk isn't it that that halloween is this foreign american festival it's another symbol of us of cultural subservience to the Americans. So why don't we take great pride in the fact 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. 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 Machna, such as the Pucca, 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, Anthony, you mentioned the puka and that it's a ghost, but what makes it so special? Because presumably there are a lot of ghosts knocking around Ireland.

So puka is Irish for ghost, and you'll often find the word puka in Irish place names. So Pál na 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 Maddy, 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 Siobhan McSweeney, and we had a bit of a discussion about what exactly the Banshee was. Maddy, I'm just wondering, like, 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 also know that they're, I want to say specifically an Irish thing. Is that fair? What do you think Siobhan? 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 to the Tuatha Dé Danann. And if you don't know what the Tuatha Dé Danann 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 all different types of things. And the banshee comes from that mythology and and there was a um uh lanan shiida who was the spirit of life and then the banshee or the banshee was the the spirit of death and so there is this death associated

okay so the banshee is part of this very 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 Tua, 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. 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 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 postponing the inevitable. I did that as a child. Did you? I do remember being in my bed with the bedclothes pulled up with the fingers in the ears and the things. I'm sure you'd hear it. Honestly, 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 yeah 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

we talked to dr kelly fitzgerald who's the head of folklore and other things at the school of also folklore university college dublin yeah other things and uh that's where i did my undergrad so it was nice to talk to her but she was talking about the pagan origins of Halloween and how the other world the fairy world is always with us whereas the ghost world only comes close at Halloween it's some quite complicated geography I would say and also we should say I learned that fairies are not the kind of light dainty buttercup bluebell bluebell swinging fairies we have in the home counties of England. None of your soft English fairies. No, these fairies are a little more robust. They are mischievous and they cause havoc. And that's what we kind of like about them. But sometimes they steal babies, the fairies, and they leave changelings in their place. So

your baby might become a changeling. So, you know, there's a real serious dark edge to some of these Halloween stories. 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 to 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 I do think there's something comforting about horror. There's something comforting about this fear.

So here is our chat with Kelly. Kelly, we're so lucky to have you. Hi, Anthony. Hi, Maddie. So lovely to meet you. Kelly, we're so lucky to have you. Hi, Anthony. Hi, Maddy. So lovely to meet you. So, Kelly, this is a time of year when 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 kind of 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. 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 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 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 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 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 Americanized, this is alien to me, this idea of the three worlds rather than these two,

the living and the dead. How did Samhain operate for ordinary people? Anthony alluded there to, you know, 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? 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 this kind of masking or mumming or geysers or fancy dress, that's really the beginning of that. 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. 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 and out of the living. Okay, so we've got the dressing up element that we might recognise and participate in today. 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 quite as unbelievable, but quite 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. This is a day where the world is not quite the same as it is in the other day. 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. It's just absolutely bonkers, but brilliantly bonkers. Why has America taken, of all the Irish customs that we came across with through a long history of emigration and immigration into the United States, why has 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, 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's 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. 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 with you guys. Every year until we're dead. Yes. That's quite haunting in itself.

Absolutely. Every year until we're dead. 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. Ah, fancy. No, we dressed up in black plastic bags, bin bags. And then we just had like pound shop masks. And then you'd go, 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 we did some um we did some apple bobbing we just did dressing up we sprayed um they used to have that foam like kids that crazy foam yes which we would spray this the spray uh spider swabs yeah exactly yeah yeah that was good i reread all of mr james ghost stories every year what even as a child yeah i started reading them really young probably inappropriately young actually they're quite frightening stop did you trick or treat no not so much what she just oh god look at this one i was i was at home reading a book reading gothic

literature and look well that has caught me yeah 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. If you want to find out more about where to go in Ireland, the events that are on, you can go to... Anthony, what's the address? It's Ireland.com. Okay, and finally, before we go and eat more cake,

let's check in on the turnips, Maddy. Oh, look at that. I'm going for a little mouth, a little scary mouth. Oh, it's quite Tim Burton-esque. Yeah, that was the vibe. Tell me I haven't done a good job. Oh, look at that. I've got a little mouth, a little scary mouth. Oh, it's quite Tim Burton-esque. Yeah, that was the vibe. Tell me I haven't done a good job. Oh my goodness. See, there's a slight resemblance.

And what's inside? 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 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! you