With Halloween lasting for weeks, and the shops giving it a big push, it's almost as big a holiday here as it is in the US - but at least we have scarier castles, writes Eileen Battersby
Bats flutter across the windows, a large grey tombstone has been erected on the lawn and here and there are skeletons in varying stages of decay.
Enter the witch, hopefully not too glamorous, accompanied by her familiar, a sneering black cat, and the better class of witch not only has a broomstick, she has at least three warts on her chin - all sprouting hairs.
Halloween night no longer simply begins as darkness falls this evening. It has become a big business and in Ireland, it is now almost as big a holiday as it is in the US, a place not famous for its haunted castles - mainly because there are no haunted castles. Many Irish households have now been engaged for some weeks prior to tonight in an unofficial competition as to who can make their homes look the scariest courtesy of rubber spiders and cotton spider webs.
Festive is not exactly the mood, anyone with a serious interest in Halloween will tonight be staking out a remote castle or church yard, better still ones with family vaults, intent on achieving the fright of their lives. Fingers crossed there will be a large white moon.
Forget about those plastic pumpkins, you need the real thing - a vegetable as big as a basketball and well rounded, wide enough to carve a good face, not too jolly, think sinister. Ideally, there should be a long stalk so when you scoop out the seeds - the goo and the brains, we always called them - you can replace the lid, having lit a candle inside. The jack-o'-lantern glows with a fire from within.
THE PUMPKIN DOES introduce the element of harvest, and is the link, at least for Americans between Halloween and Thanksgiving, just as Halloween acts as a bridge between the ungodly concepts of ghosts running amok on the night before the Christians honour the souls of the dead. Halloween night yields to All Soul's Day.
The Irish landscape with its wealth of ruined castles, deserted great houses and isolated church yards, is ideal for Halloween. There is also, of course, the strength of word of mouth, and the chances that, on cue, a banshee will wail. The old people tell stories of dead girls and beheaded warriors, and the tales are passed down through the generations. Time, it appears, is a vital element in the creating of the Halloween myth. Time and, of course, ghosts; unhappy spirits doomed to wander for eternity, lamenting some grave injustice suffered by them. The two most obvious causes are being wronged in love, and an untimely despatch on the battlefield.
No doubt about it, now more than ever as bonfires are illegal, you need a ghost and vital in the evoking of creepy atmosphere is the ghost story. A good one should be told aloud and if successful will encourage the listeners to sit that bit closer to each other - as if there was safety in increased physical contact. If the story is really good many people will wake the next morning bearing the imprint of sets of frantic fingers along their arms. Legions of Halloween revellers, having planned their outing in advance, arrive at their chosen site, intent on frightening each other. One Halloween night, my good pal Rose Price, her sons, my daughter and my self had arrived at Dunamase Castle in Co Laois. It sits high on a rock outcrop an eerie ruined castle, once owned by Strongbow. With unusual ceremony I carried our large pumpkin slowly, careful not to extinguish the candle burning inside. Its glowing face lit up the night. Rose had brought enough food to feed us and all of Strongbow's men.
For once the children did not wander very far. We made a camp and began eating. Then it was time for one of my stories. The boys soon became quite subdued, the bravado drained from their faces. "Steady on," said Rose, as the tale became bloodier, just as I was reaching the scariest bit, the part where the headless horseman reaches down for his severed head, a bird burst out of the ivy covering the wall behind me. We all screamed and fled down the hill, vacating the inner keep and abandoning the food. At the foot of the hill, we stared back at the castle.
It began to rain and ragged clouds raced across an illmoon. Braving all of that, I ran back, stumbling over the stones to fetch Orson, the pumpkin. The castle seemed darker and lonelier than ever, but the candle still flickered. I picked up the jack-o'-lantern and noticed my hands were shaking. Back at the car, the children were squashed into the back seat.
"Well, we've all had quite a Halloween fright," said Rose, who is a nurse. Stephen Fry's voice began to read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. "Did he say Goblin?" asked one of the boys. We drove on, leaving Dunamase to its ghosts.
On Sunday night, my daughter dared me to run three times around Rathfeigh graveyard in Co Meath - while she stayed in the car. It wasn't easy. It was dark and the tall grass hid various potentially leg-breaking holes and broken headstones. Low moaning came from the watching cattle in the adjoining field.
My having completed the three laps, she seemed pleased and said, "Now if you look into a bucket of water on Halloween night, you should see the face of the ghost of Rathfeigh church".
I had never heard that, how did she know about it? She smiled and gave a hollow laugh before adding, "actually, I think you're supposed to see the face of the man you will marry - but you're probably too old for that, so you'll just see a ghost." Great.
Country places do have a Halloween advantage. In the cities, the shops seem to see it as the final big push before the Christmas campaign. The suburbs, however, have trick or treat. Here, orderly groups of assorted witches, Spidermen, skeletons and pirates move from house to house in search of apples and nuts.
In the US, it was different. My first Halloween trick or treat excursion remains memorable, possibly because I had vetoed being dressed as a witch, a gypsy dancer, a pirate or a Casper the Friendly Ghost. No, I was Tweety Bird, the small, lisping, yellow feathered creature with the big eyes, famous for uttering the now immortal, "I tought I taw a Puddy cat, I did I did". It was obvious that my brother should dress in the Sylvester the Cat costume. But it didn't fit him any more. Instead he wore the JFK outfit. In any place other than southern California, dressing as the dead president could be considered tasteless but as one middle-aged housewife, wearing what she referred to as her "Hot Little Devil" outfit (red mini-dress, fishnet stockings and the horns in her hair band) reasoned "well, it is Halloween. And Kennedy is dead. He was assasssinated. So he probably is a ghost. And he was a great American. I'm sure sure he wouldn't mind."
PERHAPS AS YOU READ this, many small Americans will be preparing to dress as President Bush. But I'd like to think not. Anyhow in the coming hours, the suburbs on both sides of the Atlantic will see groups of small figures dressed in fancy dress on a mission to gather goodies. Disney characters remain popular. Shrek is the Dreamworks alternative, and offers good disguise for any father accompanying a group.
Long after I reached adulthood I tended to rate fathers on their willingness to adopt fancy dress at Halloween. Nothing more boring than seeing a plain clothes parent out with trick or treaters.
One eager father did go a step too far. Each of his five children wore a quite superb costume. I well remember the girl wearing the beautiful silver Cinderella dress. She had even refused to wear a mask, so she looked like a princess. Her father however wore a long habit - like gown with a rope belt pulled tight around his waist.
Displaying unusual imagination for the broker he was in real life, he had put on a long dark wig and had a crown of thorns on his head. And yes, he was dragging a wooden cross. He didn't last very long. Some outraged neighbours called the police and he was charged with offending religious sensibilities and was ordered home for the night. Before you ask - he was not my father.
Just as the Irish have adopted the more commercial, US-style, flashing lights approach to Christmas, leaving a minority such as me to instead look to Germany and Austria, Ireland at Halloween looks like west coast US.
But don't forget the more traditional, darker, Legend of Sleepy Hollow-style aspects, beyond the funny witches and cute little devils. So look to your nearest haunted house or church yard, or a Connemara beach, or a lonely country road. If you listen closely you will hear the echo of ghostly hoof beats and the scratching sound of the horseman reaching for his severed head. Is that a banshee wailing in the distance?
