An Irish Holliday

This year, we’re throwing a small Halloween get-together in Patna, Bihar. Just a few kids and grown ups. It’s a tiny fundraising event, an excuse really, for all of us to have some fun..

Halloween was, in reality, a pagan holiday that was born from the Celtic celebration of the dark season. This specific festival is also known as “Samhain”.

In those times, Gallic people used to observe a similar  type of celebration, known as “Samonios”; however, the Gallic day has been replaced with Christian festivals; which is the reason why Halloween hasn’t remained a traditional festival for most of Europeans.

Celts observed Samhain three days before and three days after the 1st of November. Although there were no carved pumpkins or trick or treating, people used to walk holding a lantern made out of a turnip and the celebration was stricly observed by the entire pagan society. Naturally, Samhain festival was also the occasion for Barbarians to eat, drink and have lots of fun.

Through the centuries, while Continental Europeans converted to Christianity and stopped to celebrate Samonios; which was replaced with All Saints Day, Celts turned Samhain into All Hallow’s Eve.

You might wonder why I keep writing about the former Gallic pagan festival and here’s why: although All Saints Day and Halloween may appear as totally different holidays, they’re strongly linked in that “All Hallow’s Eve” means “The night before the fest of all saints” and that it was supposed to be followed by “All Hallow’s Day”; which translates into the Christian “All Saints Day” on the Continent.

As you can see, although the festivities and activities are different, the meaning of both holidays is the same.

All Hallow’s Eve evolved through the centuries and crossed the Atlantic Sea when European colonists and, more particularly, Irish emigrants, brought the festival with them to their new home country.