Halloween, a holiday celebrated by many with costumes and candy, has ancient origins in Ireland, according to travel expert Gabe Saglie. The tradition is now drawing increased tourism to the country, Saglie noted.
The holiday's roots can be traced back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic gods. During the celebration, Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes.
In an effort to commemorate the Saints of the church, All Saints Day was established on November 1, and the evening before became known as All Hallows' Eve, which eventually became Halloween. Pope Boniface IV may have been the first to establish All Saints Day on May 13, 609 AD. The date was moved to November 1 by Pope Gregory III in the 8th century, when he expanded the festival to include the canonization of saints and began the process of trying to turn Samhain into a church-holiday.
Halloween traditions have evolved significantly over centuries. The practice of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated from an ancient Celtic or Roman custom. In medieval Europe, poor citizens would beg for food and money on All Souls Day (November 2) in exchange for prayers for the dead. This practice, known as souling, was common in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
Another Halloween tradition, the carving of jack-o'-lanterns, has roots in an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack. According to the legend, Jack tricked the devil multiple times. When he died, neither heaven nor hell would take him, so he was doomed to wander the earth forever with only a burning coal to light his way, inside a carved-out turnip. The Irish began carving out turnips and potatoes and placing a candle inside to ward off evil spirits. When immigrants came to America, they found pumpkins were more readily available and began carving them instead.