It's official - the Irish are magic.

That's the considered opinion of an Irish witch whose family line has produced seers and psychics since the 13th century.

Helen Barrett, also known as the White Witch of the Isles, is the well-known head of over 3,000 Irish witches and wizards, so she's in a position to know.

Irish history is brimming with magic, she says, and every Irish person carries a little of it in their bloodlines.

This Halloween Barrett and many other psychics and seers will join noted university academics and historians at the eighth World Ghost Convention in Cork.

If you think that this sounds like a festival of kooks, think again. No less a person that Brian Ber-mingham, the right honorable lord mayor of Cork, will preside over the opening, giving the convention his seal of approval and lifting it far above other spooky seasonal events.

Barrett agrees that the convention appeals to people fascinated with the supernatural, but skeptics also come too.

"They'll come to hear a colorful assortment of supernatural topics explored by speakers from different backgrounds and professions," she tells the Irish Voice.

"If you believe and even if you don't, you'll still learn a lot about centuries old Irish traditions, superstitions and customs."

The location for the annual Irish spook fest is, appropriately enough, the magnificent 19th Cork City Gaol, which is rumored to have its own resident ghosts which have been seen by members of the audience and even by the speakers since the first convention was established in 2001. It's the perfect setting to meet a woman who makes dramatic predictions the way other people draw breath.

"I predicted John F. Kennedy's death and Lady Diana Spencer's death, and I now predict that Barack Obama will have a short lifetime," says Barrett.

"He will pass away near water - a fountain or a waterfall - at the age of 48 (currently the Democratic candidate is 47). His wife Michelle will have an unbelievable political future."

This is not the sort of news most people want to hear, and these days in the U.S. just making it might put her on a terrorist watch list, but she's undeterred. Cynics may scoff, but she's certain she's right.

"I'll tell you something else that may surprise you, 2008 will see massive economic gains for the entire world's economy before the year's end. Whatever happens this year it will all end with massive prosperity. Celtic Tiger Ireland will roar back to life shortly too," she adds.

Professor Margaret Humphreys of University College Cork doesn't make startling predictions but she's an authority on Irish traditions and customs.

"Samhain, the old Celtic name for what we now call Halloween, marked one of the four seasonal divisions of the year," she told the Irish Voice.

"For centuries Ireland was an agricultural society, completely dependent on the seasons, and so many of our traditions grew up as a way to exert some kind of magical control on the forces of nature."In Ireland the eve of the feast of Samhain or Halloween was - then and now - a magical and mysterious time, when the barriers between this world and the world to come fall down.

"People who had passed away were allowed to roam the world for one night, and one of the customs in Ireland was to sweep down the hearth, leave food on the table and stoke the fire, in case any of your dead relatives might pay a visit in the night," Humphreys says.

All the talk of death and hauntings also often gave way, as it should, to romance. "On Halloween night young Irish women used to put a piece of cabbage under their pillow, because it was said that you would then dream of your future husband," says Humphreys.

"In the old days Irish women were usually completely dependent on men for their financial and social independence, so it's no surprise they wanted to get some magical information on the man they would eventually marry. It's interesting to note that there are very few similar rituals recorded for young men in the historical accounts. I suppose they could afford to take their fates for granted more."