Halloween's haunted roots: do you know where the holiday originated?Brittany AnasBrittany AnasSeptember 6, 2025 at 7:08 PM Ireland is considered the birthplace of Halloween, with a number of festivals and parade held across the island, including the Samhain Festival in Limerick City.
- - Halloween's haunted roots: do you know where the holiday originated?Brittany AnasBrittany AnasSeptember 6, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Ireland is considered the birthplace of Halloween, with a number of festivals and parade held across the island, including the Samhain Festival in Limerick City. (Failte Ireland)
It's the height of spooky season, which, in the United States, may mean visiting some of the scariest haunted houses, cueing up Hocus Pocus or making a trip to the local pumpkin patch. Halloween has become wildly popular in the United States, especially in recent years with the National Retail Federation estimating that U.S. spending for the holiday will reach $11.6 million in 2024, with 72% percent of Americans planning to celebrate the spooky day.
While Halloween holds quite the spell on Americans, did you know the October holiday didn't originate in the United States? Rather, we can thank the same country that's given us Guinness beer, top golf courses and St. Patrick's Day for the spooky October holiday.
That's right: Ireland claims to be the birthplace of Halloween, and the Emerald Isle, to this day, is a popular place for Halloween travel. Even if you don't sync your trip to Ireland up with one of the festive Halloween celebrations, plenty of spine-chilling spots are open year-round for eerie itineraries.
Here's more on how Ireland has helped shape Halloween traditions in the United States.
What Country is Halloween's Birthplace?
Costumes on Halloween as a tradition are believed to originate from the Samhain Festival, when Celts wore masks and dressed in disguise to hide from evil spirits. (Courtesy Failte Ireland)
The origin of Halloween dates back about 2,000 years ago to pagan Ireland, where the ancient festival of Samhain was celebrated on the island.
According to Tourism Ireland, the festival marked the end of harvest, and the start of winter when the Celts believed they were "closest to the underworld" and that, with such a thin veil separating the underworld from Earth, spirits freely roamed the Earth.
Samhain is considered a time to reflect on those who have passed, explains Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald, Head of University College Dublin's School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore. But the timing of the festival is also important: Celebrated at the end of the harvest, as the days get shorter and clocks "fall back," it's a time of year when we face our fears because we're going into the darkness, she explains.
What Modern-Day Halloween Traditions Started in Ireland
Spooky, carved pumpkins (Olga Rolenko via Getty Images)
Some of the Halloween traditions celebrated in the states can be traced back to the festival of Samhain.
Bonfires blazed to ward off demonic spirits, and the embers were carried home in hollowed out turnips, a trend that pre-dates carving jack-o-lanterns.
While this year's top Halloween costumes include superheros and princesses, the origins of dressing up for Halloween is actually pretty spooky: Celts wore masks and costumes to disguise themselves from the evil spirits so they don't recognize you.
What's The History of Trick-Or-Treating?
A bowl full of Halloween candy. (Jaclyn Vernace via Getty Images)
As for trick-or-treating? Like much of folklore, several theories exist on how it came to be in the United States. But long before there were bite-sized Butterfingers and fun-sized packages of Skittles, children and poor people in Ireland would visit more well-to-do families, offering to pray for their souls in exchange for Soul Cakes, according to Ireland's tourism board, which are baked goods, usually decorated with a cross, and made with dried fruits and spices. The Library of Congress also says that during Samahin, the Celtic people would leave out foods to appease the spirits traveling between the underworld and the Earth at night.
Some also believe that trick-or-treating began with a Scottish practice of "guising," which was the secular version of "souling" during the Middle Ages. Guisers didn't offer prayers, but rather would exchange songs and jokes for treats.
Yet another theory on the origins of trick-or-treating, according to the Library of Congress, points to a German-American Christmas tradition called belsnickeling, in which children would dress in costume and if no one could recognize them, they earned treats.
How Is Halloween Celebrated in Ireland?
Dark Hedges in County Antrim, Northern Irelan (romrodinka via Getty Images)
Halloween remains popular in Ireland to this day, with a number of celebrations throughout the country in late October and early November.
In County Meath, the Púca Festival celebrates a mysterious folkloric creature believed to have the power to change the fortunes of those who meet it. The Hill of Ward in County Meath is one of the earliest sites to host the festival of Samhain. The Celts lit a ceremonial fire to usher in a new season during the festival.
Or, celebrate at a carnival in Derry-Londonderry, an ancient walled city. Dracula fans descend on Dublin to celebrate the count as well as the one who dreamed him up at the Bram Stoker Festival.
Beyond these festivals, scare-seekers can find ghost tours year-round in Ireland. Some of the scariest sites (should you dare) include the Hellfire Club in Dublin County, where the rich were rumored to play cards with the devil in the 18th century, and the Seafield House in the County Sligo, where no priest was able to exorcise a poltergeist from this 19th century country house.
Source: "AOL Lifestyle"
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