We’re delighted to launch our 👂 Samhainpage, produced in conjunction with Miss Campbell’s and Mr Burns’ 2023/2024 P7 pupils, from St Joseph’s Primary School in Carryduff. Just click on the word before the 👂, to hear how it’s pronounced in Irish. This “Four Seasons Project” was funded through an Ultach Fund grant to Carryduff GAC.
If you’d like to hear our Primary School children Eimear, Alex and Emily telling you about Samhain, just click on the👂 below.
Samhain, an Irish Festival (👂)
Samhain is an old Irish festival that the Irish used to celebrate during the autumn before Halloween became a traditional holiday. They started to celebrate Samhain in the 9th century as they believed that the spirits of the dead awakened.
During Samhain, it was a tradition to gather fruits and nuts (👂 torthaí agus cnónna👂) that would be used in children’s games on the night of the Celtic holiday. Other typical traditions would include dancing (👂damhsaigh), feasting (👂féasta), taking nature (👂dúchas) walks and building altars to honour their ancestors (👂sinsearacht).
Ancient Celts marked Samhain as the most significant of the four quarterly fire festivals, taking place at the midpoint between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. Samhain was considered a kind of new year, marking the end of summer and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time characterised by death.
To summarise what this holiday was about, it was Halloween before Christianity was introduced to the Irish settlers.
Today, some traditions from Samhain can be found, even after all of these years!
By Eimear, Emily and Alex.
Miss Campbell’s P7 Class (2023/2024),
St Joseph’s Primary School, Carryduff.
Well done to Meabh, Caoimhe & Aoibhe too (Miss Campbell’s P7 Class (2023/2024), St Joseph’s Primary School, Carryduff), who presented the following additional research on Samhain 👇 and you can listen to them 👂here.
Also, this brief clip on Samhain from the History Channel is excellent.
