Culture

In a Word . . . Halloween

In a September during our teens a gang of us took part in cleaning up an old graveyard

A Halloween bonfire in Jobstown, 2017. Photograph: Dave Meehan

Patsy McGarry's face
Patsy McGarry
Sat Oct 19 2019 - 00:00

As with nostalgia, Halloween is not what it used to be. Deep in the last millennium when I was a boy it was associated with ghosts, witches, and other sundry unsavoury creatures from a netherworld best left undisturbed but that could still generate terrors in a small boy’s fertile imagination.

Some adults, too, credulous creatures who believed in all sorts of myths that today excite only hilarity. It wasn’t unusual in the countryside for people to wake up at this time of year and find heads of their finest cabbage kicked and strewn along the roads after a night of wild revelry by out-of-control bad spirits – mostly young men causing mischief frequently assisted by spirits of the liquid kind.

Doors would be knocked on but when they were opened no one was there. This would be repeated, driving the afflicted resident to distraction. That particular “ghostly action” involved a piece of thin thread being attached to a door knocker and pulled from a safe distance every time the door was closed.

And though All Souls Day follows shortly after Halloween, it was not a time for visiting graveyards. You never knew what you might see there, despite yourself. In a September during our teens a gang of us took part in cleaning up an old graveyard. One of our number left a jumper behind. It was after dark, but still we were: “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to the graveyard we go . . . ”

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Only so far! As we approached we saw a white light near one of the gravestones. That was the end of “hi ho”. Our retreat was spectacular and speedy.

Word got out that we had seen a ghost. We protested not to believe in ghosts, but it was a bit like the old lady who didn’t believe in fairies but said they might still be there anyhow.

Eventually an older, braver soul set off and returned a short time later with the forgotten jumper and to announce that what we had seen was the moon’s reflection on a marble headstone. And it might have been, Michael, so it might.

We did not test his explanation. Just in case.

Halloween, or Holy Eve, is the evening previous to All Saints Day on November 1st. Hallow, from Old English haliga, halga, meaning a holy person or saint.

inaword@irishtimes.com