3. Halloween Is More Irish Than St. Patrick’s Day
When one thinks of Irish holidays, St. Patrick’s Day is undoubtedly the first to come to mind. However, St. Patrick’s Day is mostly an Irish-American invention that has inflated what was once a minor religious holiday into a celebration of all things “Irish.” In reality, St. Patrick may well not have been Irish himself, and the color green would have been the blue woad color of the Celts. St. Patrick’s most significant accomplishment was also driving paganism out of Ireland – the very idolatry which gave us all Halloween through the genuinely Irish festival of Samhain.
Samhain was a Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the darker half of the year. It was also believed to be a time in which the veil between the lands of the living and the dead was its thinnest, allowing spirits to walk amongst the living. Bonfires were lit during Samhain to help drive away spirits and other spectral visitors. Masks and costumes were worn to make the wearers unrecognizable to hostile spirits.
As Europe turned to Christianity, the Catholic Church took elements of Samhain to create a festival before the Christian holiday of All Saint’s Day. All Saint’s Day (also known as All Hallows) was moved from May to November 1st to create the hybrid holiday to appeal to pagans. The name Halloween comes from a shortening of All Hallow’s Eve to Hallow’s Eve to Hallowe’en and