Derry Hosts The World's Greatest Samhain Festival - Halloween's Return of the Ancients

The Ulster City of Derry (Doire) host's a massive Halloween party from 26 October through 3 November. The event, which is billed as the “Return of the Ancients", includes a Carnival Parade and various events in and arouned the city of Doire. The Festival is held on the days leading up to Halloween, which is the modern name for the pre-Christian Celtic feast day of Samhain. Celtic Myth surrounding Samhain (Halloween) includes many tales of Shape Shifting Fairies who emerge at Halloween when the door to the Otherworld opens.

Samhain has survived, flourished and conquered the modern psyche. The ancient Celtic holiday was the start of the Celtic New Year. This is when the Druids lit bonfires marking a period of great danger to mortal souls. The bonfires were a warning that the laws of nature were suspended and the barriers between the natural order of things and the Celtic Underworld were dissolved, when the Underworld became visible to the living and the Fairies and the Dead would come forth.

Utilizing the city’s walls, the last remaining in Ireland and said to be one of the finest examples of a walled city in Europe, the 2018 organizers have provided three evenings before Samhain when “…we party with the supernatural to banish the dark on an illuminated animation trail throughout our historic City Walls. With haunting tales from friends of the past, spooktacular haunted windows, a witchy wonderland, the trail features over 40 installations and performances by local and international artists. Follow the ‘Return of the Goddess’ procession along Bishop Street and the surrounding streets. Discover frights and delights along the way, as the weird and wonderful come out to play. A haunting experience as the ancient spirits return and pass through. “ 

On Samhain ordinary folk were highly vulnerable to being kidnapped by Fairies and taken to the Underworld and it was ill advised to go near the many "Fairie Mounds" which are said to have dotted the Celtic countryside. The tradition of “dressing up” at Halloween was a ruse to hide one’s true identity from the Fairies and thus escape abduction. Dr. Jennifer Butler, Folklorist at University College Cork's Folklore and Ethnology Department states in an interview published by the Archelogical Institute of America: " One of the theories of guising and dressing as ghosts may be the notion that the dead are returning on this night and the change of appearance may protect the human from being recognized by the returning spirits of the dead."

In the six Celtic Nations of Brittany, Cornwall, Ireland, Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales, Samhain traditionally marks the end of the summer and the beginning if winter and is associated with the Celtic feast of kala Goanv (Breton), Calan Gwaf (Cornish), Samhain (Irish), Sauin (Manx Gaelic), Samhuinn (Scottish Gaelic) and Calan Gaeaf (Welsh). Samhain is a time when the creatures of the 'Otherworld' make their presence known to the people of 'this world'.  

http://derryhalloween.com/