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  • irishtimes.com - Posted: November 2, 2009 @ 2:13 pm

    Halloween in Belfast

    Bryan

    A fire juggling stiltwalker in the Colours Street Theatre Halloween parade in Galway city centre, October 31st. Photo:Joe O'Shaughnessy

    A fire juggling stiltwalker in the Colours Street Theatre Halloween parade in Galway city centre, October 31st. Photo:Joe O’Shaughnessy.

    Halloween in Belfast was for me, a night full of contradictions.

    According to Wikipedia (yes yes, I know it’s not the most reliable source of knowledge), Halloween is the offspring of pagan and Christian traditions. On the Christian side of the family, Halloween falls on the eve of All Saints Day, on which Christians in heaven are remembered. The next day in the Catholic calendar is All Souls Day, when the focus is on those still waiting to enter. On the pagan side, it is linked to Samhain, a Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest; the end of the lighter half of the year and the beginning of the darker half.

    I find that history strangely comforting because looking around on Saturday night, I was struck by how many opposing things I thought I saw lying side-by-side. The first was the idea of dressing up as all sorts of spooky things in a country whose two main communities identify themselves as Catholic and Protestant. Maybe it’s because folks there actually believe in things like witchcraft and evil spirits, but you’d be hard pressed to find members of the African Christian community dressed as Beetlejuice. The two things, Beetlejuice and Christianity, are thought to be diametrically opposed.

    And then there were the fireworks. Have you ever thought you should be very afraid but then pretend to be unfazed because everyone around you is going about business as usual? That’s how the fireworks that I could hear but not see made me feel. The fact that there was the occasional siren in the background – not to mention police on foot patrol (in their bullet-proof vests) and standing besides vehicles that looked like they’d just returned from Basra Province – none of that helped. It was only made worse by the fact that no-one else took notice. Not only did they not take notice, they were happily lined up in their witch, ghost and Frankenstein costumes, patiently waiting to get into clubs.

    I suppose Halloween was odd for me because I kept seeing the wrong thing. When I looked at the guy dressed as a vampire, I saw the response his costume would have evoked in rural Zimbabwe, or the Vatican for that matter. The fireworks, the sirens, the police…

    My grandmother had some furniture ruined during Zimbabwe’s independence war. When I was young, I kept trying to get her to tell me what had happened and to talk about the past. She didn’t want to do that, she wanted to live in the present and focus on the future.

    I suppose a morbid fascination with the past is an outsiders prerogative. The owners of that past tend to prefer to leave it there.

    • 7 Comments

    1.
    November 2, 2009
    3:57 pm

    It would be interesting to go back in time and view these festivals through my grandparents eyes. Religion and superstition went hand in hand and I would have heard endless stories of spirits and strange happenings. I’ve no idea how real they were for them or was it their pre television version of suspending disbelief when watching a horror flick. Today its just another excuse for a party or to act out. Although I could imagine in Belfast you could find bible belt types who would in all earnest warn you not to leave yourself open to demonic influences. Long live superstition !

    Comment by Liam
    2.
    November 2, 2009
    4:59 pm

    The history of HALLOWEEN mainly comes from very old Ireland and very little from old Roman Empire as the beganning of HOLLOWEEN. Today many adults use HOLLOWEEN as a day to be some one else but the candy companies keep it alive for the kids. The day was the cloest time for the spirit world to be with our world. The light of large fires where to keep the spirits away. In old Ireland, people whould leave someting out side for the returning spirit to keep it from coming into the house and that is where “trick or treat” comes from.

    Comment by Patrick
    3.
    November 3, 2009
    4:36 am

    When I was young over sixty years ago, there was no tv, of course.The winter nights were long and dark, particularly in the rural andsemi-rural areas. It was easy to imagine pookas, leaprachauns and other fairies. Halloween was a great time when we played games at home by the fireside and ate apples and pears, ate colcannon and had barm breac .The great excitement was to see who would get the ring.We also knew that we were doing what our ancestors had done since time immimorial. Todays children miss all that fun.
    Bryan, I hope you werenot referring to the Six Counties as a “country”. It is a truncated province.

    Comment by Brian P O Cinneide
    4.
    November 3, 2009
    1:59 pm

    In Norn Arland, as in the rest of the UK, halloween (Hallow Eve, to uz), was conflated with Guy Fawkes Day. Hence the fireworks. And ducking for apples and snap apple? From the Roman festival of Pomona.

    But you’re right, Bryan, Christianity is little more than skin deep in some of them there hills and valleys and back streets. As in Dancing at Lughnasa, for example. Long ago and far away, indeed, but check out little girls turning up for confirmation in high-heels, wigs, and make-up, and arriving in stretch limos or horse drawn carriages. Not to mention the flash photography in the church and the constant emailing of photos from the pews.

    And wanting to be scared in a controlled environment is surely a remnant of childhood, a remnant that is too large in some places and drives politics in a way that would make one despair of democracy,

    Comment by DesJay
    5.
    November 4, 2009
    1:41 pm

    Liam – I wouldn’t have to go very far to find bible belt types. I don’t know. I think the idea that because as a species we have pretty much mastered the material world therefore we know all there is to know about life is flawed. Can you really relgate the idea of a spiritual, non-material world to the realm of superstition. Even the great Enlightenment philosopher Kant left open the possibility of the spiritual world which, while maybe not accessible through reason, is accessible through faith.

    Patrick – Sounds incredibly similar to some aspects of traditional African beliefs in some places. As for the sweet companies, I recently heard someone argue that Coke invented Christmas. It was a plausible argument.

    Brian – Bryan, I hope you werenot referring to the Six Counties as a “country”. It is a truncated province.
    My apologies. I keep slipping up. Give it a little time.

    DesJay – A big question for me is if the superficial nature of religion in many places today is a modern phenomenon, born of the modern world, of if things have always been so.

    As for wanting to be scared in a controlled environment is surely a remnant of childhood, a remnant that is too large in some places and drives politics in a way that would make one despair of democracy,
    you’re probably right.

    Comment by Bryan
    6.
    November 4, 2009
    3:22 pm

    Bryan , I wouldnt sneer at genuine spiritual pursuits but I find the black and white version that I’ve come accross in the North a bit hokey

    Comment by Liam
    7.
    November 6, 2009
    10:04 am

    A friend of mine Michael Harding writing in todays Irish Times pretty much sums Halloween. “There was a time when Halloween was a door into the other world, a portal into the mysterious realm of angels and demons, but not anymore. Nowadays, everything is real. It’s almost impossible to believe in anything metaphysical. Ghosts are just rubber masks on sale in shop windows.”

    The rationalists are in the driving seat and only the travelling community and a few freaks from the edge could ever believe that the Blessed Virgin is appearing in Knock, but making it a tad difficult for our eyes by appearing in the sun.

    But hold on a minute. Isnt it Einstein, Hawkin and all these scientists who talk about the incredible sense of mystery brought on by their scientific studies. And didnt Richard Dawkins write a book called “Unweaving the rainbow” otherwise known as “Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder”.

    The Appetite for Wonder will never die. It mutates with sceince, technology and urbanisation. We all need a portal into the mysterious realm of angels and demons. That realm never dies: it just changes. Maybe Halloween needs updating to capture the mysteries of the 21st century. Religion is in that mysterious realm dancing with the dead, the demons and the angels……… together all become a pot pourri to keep our insatiable appetite for wonder whetted. Treat them all as fodder for that sense of wonder, and don’t look for logic, consistency, or sense within. That’s the other realm.

    Patrick

    Bangkok

    Comment by Patrick Hennessy

    Comments on this article are now closed.


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