The Irish Times view on Halloween: hello darkness, my old friend

It has become customary at this time of year to lament the commercialisation and, by implication, the Americanisation of Halloween. A native tradition, rooted in the pre-Christian past and handed down through centuries of folklore, has supposedly been surrendered to Hollywood horror franchises and mountains of plastic tat. In that telling the pumpkin and the cry of trick or treat are interlopers on sacred ground. Who now carves a turnip? Does anyone bob for apples any more?

Little of this stands up to scrutiny. Samhain was one of the great seasonal markers of early Ireland, and medieval tales place encounters with the Otherworld at that season. But those tales were written down by Christian monks, and the now-familiar picture of a Celtic new year devoted to the wandering dead owes much to the Victorians. Most of the customs now held up as ancient are documented only from the last few centuries. The American versions are not usurpers so much as returning cousins, carried west by emigrants and reshaped there.

Better, then, to accept Halloween for what it is, a shape-shifting festival with genuine roots in the turn of the year, when the harvest is in and the long nights close around us. And to admit it suits one of the odder human pleasures, the wish to be frightened in safety.

The Americanisation story is currently being turned on its head. Derry has spent four decades building itself into Europe’s Halloween capital. That model has now been adopted across the island under the Ireland, Home of Halloween banner, with hundreds of events promoted by tourism bodies north and south. Ireland’s claim to be the birthplace of the festival may be contested, but it is plainly marketable. If Halloween is now about money, at least some of it is staying here.

For most Irish families, though, the night still belongs to children. The procession of small ghouls, witches and zombies from door to door remains one of the few occasions when neighbours open their homes to each other in the dark. That is something worth keeping, whatever its origin.