Scare yourself silly in the home of Halloween Ireland

3^rd September 2018: Enjoy a spine-tingling Halloween break in Ireland, where ancient chills meet modern thrills in a host of fantastical festivals. To the ancient Celts, the passing of summer meant the lighting of large hill-top fires, dressing up in disguises to ward off ghosts and having their fill of the harvest before the winter darkness set in.

Today, that pagan festival of Samhain has come a long way from its Irish roots, but its underlying rituals and influences have gone global as Halloween. The world loves to scare itself silly at Halloween – and no more so than in the place where it all began. With Samhain celebrations, festivals, parties, trick or treating aplenty and lots of scary events to have fun at countrywide, Ireland is the place to be at the turning of summer to winter.

In Dublin, the Bram Stoker Festival (26 – 29 October) is something big to sink your fangs into. It brings four nights of vampire-filled high-jinks to the city in honour of the Dubliner who wrote the famous gothic horror novel Dracula. This year it will include BRAM, a haunting, self-guided audio horror tour through the historic streets of Dublin, Stokerland, a pop-up Victorian fun park for families and the eternally young, and a hauntingly beautiful, wild and tempestuous closing parade by pioneering street performers and storytellers, Macnas.

On the Wild Atlantic Way, one of the biggest festivals of fright and delight can be found at the Galway Aboo Festival, while the Spirits of Meath Halloween Festival (6 October – 4 November) in Ireland’s Ancient East takes place in one of the main spiritual centres of the ancient Celts. But a scare-fest like no other awaits in the Walled City of Derry~Londonderry in Northern Ireland, where the Banks of the Foyle Halloween Carnival (26 October – 3 November) has got to be seen to be believed. Thousands will get into the spirit by dressing up in spooky costumes in the largest Halloween party in Europe, with a truly stupendous parade and firework finale.

An array of events take place over the nine days. Take a ghostbus tour, see the Zombie Apocalypse, let the kids loose in the Monster Funfair or banish the dark with Awakening the Walls, a supernatural illuminated animation trail around the famous walls. Or bathe in the light of Museum of the Moon, featuring detailed NASA imagery of the Moon’s surface and atmospheric soundtrack by award winning composer, Dan Jones. Historic venues across the city will host to a series of Samhain Sessions, intimate music events and lighting installations from local, national and internationally acclaimed artists. For a Halloween trip to remember, it’s got to be the place where it all began.