FOR an Irish child of my generation, Halloween was nearly as big as Christmas. Paradoxically it is now a much larger and more public festival but less thrilling for a child, less tied in with historic traditions, superstitions and religious faith.
It was a family event then.
Father organised the fireworks display in a manner which would be illegal today.
He would nail the catherine wheel onto a post or door and light it creating a hissing and whirling galaxy of sparks.
He would get us all to stand well back from the bangers and jumping jinnies and on no account would he let you light a banger in your hand and throw it. We only did that when he wasn’t around.
We fired our rockets into the sky from milk bottles. Milk bottles disappeared from common use in Belfast a few years later when petrol bombers found a use for them.
We wore scary masks or false faces and walked the dark streets to scare each other. These were flimsy affairs made of cardboard. They would steam up inside and go damp and the elastic holding them to your head would too easily break free. But nobody expected perfection in those days.
For tea we had barmbrack, a currant loaf and the lucky child found the ring or the tanner inside without breaking teeth. A tanner, for the uninformed, was the old silver sixpence.
We would hollow out a turnip, cut holes for eyes nose and mouth and light a candle in it and carry this lantern on string through the streets, daring the banshee or the devil to meet us face to face. Well, actually I would have wet myself if anyone had even suggested that.
This whole event was predicated on a belief in and fear of ghosts. This was our remnant of the Celtic festival of Samhain when the boundary between the spirit world and ours was thinner or removed altogether.
And that superstition had its corollary in our Catholic faith and practice too. Halloween was the eve of All Saints Day which was followed by All Souls Day. And that was a serious matter.
All Souls Day was the day on which souls of the dead could be released into Heaven from the fires of Purgatory. And there was a system for getting them out.
You had to make a visit to the church and say an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be for a specific soul.
When you went into the church there was a coffin in the aisle in front of the altar with a list on it of the recent dead of the parish. So you could pick a name, pray for that person and get them out of purgatory.
And you could repeat that, going down the list, but each soul required a separate visit so after setting one soul free you would leave the church then go back in to do another.
As children we thought we were doing important work, then someone sowed doubt in the value of our prayers by suggesting that other visitors to the church might already have released some of the souls we had prayed for and that our prayers had been wasted. Maybe it would be better to work up from the bottom of the list.
But then maybe others had thought of that too.
Better just go and kick a ball about.
Now Halloween is a huge event, particularly in Derry with a massive parade and fireworks display over the river.
Thousands of people will dress up in hired costumes as monsters and ghosts and - a popular choice - naughty nuns in habit and suspenders and fishnet stockings. The turnip lantern has been replaced with the American pumpkin.
At home we will have supplies of monkey nuts and sweets for children calling at the door with their pleas of ‘trick or treat?’ This is another American import.
We didn’t call at people’s houses expecting sweets or nuts. We were more likely to have knocked the door and run away. The bad boys would have put a banger through the letter box.
The differences between Halloween then and now is that then it was centred on the home whereas now it is a public carnival.
And in those darker winters the belief that spirits walked abroad was a real part of the sensation, the emotional character of the night and it was affirmed by a religious teaching that we all believed.
The corner shop sold boxes of assorted fireworks. Now sale of these is restricted except for the innocuous sparklers.
You are more likely to see fireworks at a riot now than at a family party.
As for the souls in Purgatory, if there are any, I doubt that my feeble prayers were of much use to them anyway.
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