Irish Halloween secrets to help you have an amazing traditional Samhain.
Halloween is as Irish as the love of the humble spud!
From the Celtic festival of Samhain to wearing black and orange, here are the Irish secrets behind the festivities.
Halloween itself is Samhain.
It is an ancient Irish festival, created for Samhain, the day when the undead walk among us and we must ward off evil spirits.
Celebrating the Celtic holiday of Samhain with a bonefire.
Start of winter
It marked the end of the long days and the drawing in of winter. In the same way that the Celts celebrated Lughnasa, the festival when the harvest was brought in, Samhain represented the beginning of winter.
Halloween, or Samhain, marks the start of winter.
Blindfold games meanings
A favorite game was to blindfold the Irish person and ask them to place their hand on some Halloween items. A bowl of water meant emigration, a piece of earth meant a death in the family, a ring meant a wedding, and so on.
Close your eyes and put out your hands... blindfold games on Halloween comes from the Irish.
James Joyce's Clay
One of the greatest short stories by James Joyce, ‘Clay,’ refers to this very custom when the main character touches the clay saucer but is quickly moved on by her worried relatives.
A ring in a barmbrack
A ring was hidden in the barmbrack, a specially made fruitcake. The person who got the ring-- if you didn’t swallow it-- had a happy marriage ahead.
Delicious fruity barm brack with butter for Halloween.
Bobbing for apples
Bobbing for apples is when couples try to bite an apple that is bobbing in a bowl of water. The symbolism was biting into the seed, which meant fertility in the year ahead.
A red-haired woman
Meeting a red-haired woman was a bad omen, especially for fishermen, but meeting one on Halloween was even direr. A man had to turn around and go right back home, but funnily, a woman did not.
Orange and black
Orange and black, the colors of Halloween, are the colors of death in Celtic legend.
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We wear orange and black on Halloween because of the Irish.
We wear orange and black on Halloween because of the Irish.
The power of druids
Druids were especially powerful at Halloween when the spirit world was closest. Their visions and predictions were most closely listened to then.
The custom of Halloween was brought to America by Irish famine emigrants in the 1840s.
* Originally published in 2010, updated in Oct 2024.
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