ACTUALLY IT IS MOST LIKELY THAT THE FESTIVAL ORIGINATED IN IRELAND
This series of images was captured in 2017 and the photographs have been very much processed and modified because the original RAW files were close to unusable.
I receive many requests for information and, excluding questions relating to Leprechauns , the most common question that I receive is “do people in Ireland have Halloween?”. I received such a question yesterday so I decided to ask Google’s BARD AI. Here is the answer that I received:
Yes, people in Ireland celebrate Halloween. In fact, Halloween is thought to have originated in Ireland as the Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts believed that on the eve of Samhain, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead was weakened, allowing spirits to pass between them. To ward off these spirits, the Celts would light bonfires, wear costumes, and tell stories of the dead.
Today, Halloween is celebrated in Ireland in much the same way as it is in other parts of the world. People dress up in costumes, go trick-or-treating, and light bonfires. However, there are still some traditional Irish Halloween customs that are still observed, such as:
Eating barmbrack, a traditional Irish fruitcake that is often baked with a small trinket inside. The person who finds the trinket in their slice of barmbrack is said to have good luck for the year ahead. Telling ghost stories. Ireland has a rich tradition of ghost stories, and Halloween is a time when people gather to tell them. Going to haunted places. There are many haunted places in Ireland, and Halloween is a popular time to visit them. Halloween is a fun and festive occasion in Ireland, and it is a great time to experience Irish culture. If you are ever in Ireland on Halloween, be sure to participate in the festivities!
I actually lived in a haunted house.
Macnas is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed performance group based in Galway, Ireland. The company was founded in 1986 by Páraic Breathnach, Tom Conroy, Ollie Jennings, and Pete Sammon. Macnas’s productions are immersive and spectacular, and the group’s repertoire includes parades, theatre shows, installations, film, and performance art. Any site can become a stage for Macnas: city streets, GAA clubs, disused warehouses, bogs, mountains, car parks, and sheds.
On 20 May 2022, Capel street was made traffic-free, following a campaign by people who wanted to improve the quality of life on the street. It is now the longest traffic-free street in Dublin.
This is my local area and I have always liked Capel Street as it is a unique commercial street in the city centre. It is a great place to shop and it is full of excellent restaurants, I have tried most of them.
Capel Street is named after Arthur Capell, 1st Earl of Essex, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1672–1677. Historically, it was the site of the chapel of St Mary’s Abbey. The street was laid out by Sir Humphrey Jervis in the late 17th century on the Abbey lands he purchased in 1674. He also built Essex Bridge (today Grattan Bridge), and the street was known for its mansions and a royal mint. In the 18th century, it became a commercial hub, with two-bay buildings replacing most of the “Dutch Billy” houses. In the late 1700s, the Italian composer, Tommaso Giordani, performed at a small purpose built theatre on the street. The Capel Street Theatre also stood there in the 18th century.
The Torch Theatre operated on Capel Street from 1935–41. The street declined in the 20th century, before a revival around the 1980s. Today it is known for its variety of restaurants, shops, cafés and pubs; as Panti, the owner of Pantibar put it, “You can buy a lightbulb, sexual lubricant, Brazilian rice, get a pint and go to a trad session”. Louis Copeland’s tailor is another notable business.