Halloween in Ireland
Halloween is very popular in Ireland, where it originated, and is also known as “Samhain Night”. In present-day Ireland, children and adults dress up as creatures of the underworld (ghosts, zombies, witches, etc.), light bonfires and enjoy spectacular fireworks displays. It is common for fireworks to be displayed during all of October and even a few days after Halloween as well. Children go trick-or-treating and eat Ireland’s traditional Halloween cake, the barmbrack. This fruit bread is the center of Irish custom and traditionally contained various objects baked into the bread to be used as some sort of a fortune-telling game.
Each barmbrack would contain a pea, a piece of cloth, a stick, a ring and a small coin. Each item, when received in the slice, carries a meaning to the person concerned. The pea symbolizes that the person would not marry that year, the stick means that he/she would have an unhappy marriage, the cloth means that he/she will have bad luck or be poor, the coin symbolizes that the person will be rich and the ring means that the person will be married that year. Ireland also enjoys playing lots of Halloween games such as bobbing for apples. At lunchtime, Colcannon, a traditional Halloween meal is eaten often wrapped with coins wrapped in grease-proof paper mixed in. Ireland seems like a great place to spend Halloween!
Works Cited/Further Reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween
