Culture

Halloween: Our annual opportunity for official mischief

In a Word ... Halloween

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Oct 31 2020 - 00:30

Hello and welcome to Halloween, eve of All Saints’ Day, when the churches celebrate all saints, known and unknown. Yes, dear reader, someday you too will be included, as only the very best people read this column.

As children, Halloween was our annual opportunity for official mischief. It was of such outrageous standard as tying thread to a door knocker and, from a safe distance, watching as a put-upon neighbour opened the door to nothing but perplexity. Such evil.

Usually, we’d pick on particularly contrary older men or women we were half afraid of. We’d revel in their confusion – at a safe and unseen distance – as they looked up and down the street before closing the door. We’d do it again and again – such exquisite torture – until they realised what was going on and tear our thread from the knocker.

One lady in particular who attracted our attention at Halloween was known locally as “The Roof Inspector” because she pranced through the town with her nose held high and barking at us kids to get out of her way. She did not like children. Halloween was our annual opportunity to balance the books.

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And a contrary old man down the street was rumoured to have a hatchet. We tugged at the knocker on his door in the thrilling hope he might come out waving the hatchet in a rage. He never did.

There were downsides to Halloween then too – the mortification of getting the ring in a slice of brack with its embarrassing intimations of that strange business called marriage within a year. And that hateful feeling of water up your nose when ducking for apples.

How were we to know then it would be perfect preparation for a Covid-19 test all these decades later? Only some wore masks at the time, for fun. And it didn’t mean having to wade through a fog as glasses steamed up or stumbling in a fuzz of near-sightedness with them removed.

Who would have thought this time last year that mask would have a similar emotional impact as those other four-letter words?

Halloween, the first of a three-day commemoration – All Saints’ Eve (Halloween), All Saints’ Day (All Hallows), and All Souls’ Day – dedicated to remembering the dead.

Hallow, from Old English halgian "to make holy".

[ inaword@irishtimes.com ]