A strange mingling of the living and the dead

We’re on the very cusp of darkness again with the clocks falling back by an hour on Sunday morning next, while it’s also a time of the year when the links between the living and the dead are reputed to be at their closest.

In one way, there’s nearly a certain relief that the clocks will have eventually changed and expectations of making use of an hour of daylight on the return from work, have eventually being quenched.

The slow loss of light through late September and October is nearly more lonesome than the official arrival of the short days when the clocks change, while Halloween will also bring its witches, ghastly masks, spooky films and talk of ghosts and spirits.

It’s a major church celebration over recent centuries with All Saints Day celebrated on November 1 followed by All Souls Day on the 2nd, but the origin of the Samhain festival goes back to more pagan times with references to celebrations dating back to 400BC.

Samhain (November) represented a time when the crops were gathered and as the days shortened up dramatically, families and communities settled in for a period of winter hibernation with the basic aims of staying sheltered and having enough food and drink to survive until the arrival of the following Spring.

I could never really figure out whether the spirits of the dead hovering about around Halloween time were good or bad, but there always seemed to be an air of menace about them, and as young children, we always feared that the evil ones tended to dominate the scene.

Atmospherics of course contributed to that sense of foreboding and fear and there always seemed to be a greater chance of being confronted by a spook in times of darkness rather than in mid-Summer.

Sometime back in the 7th century, a Pope Boniface (not nearly as cultured a ring to it as Pope Francis!), decided it was time for the Church to reclaim the capers of Halloween and he is largely credited with the creation of the All Saints and Souls feast days.

The tradition has prospered over the centuries and there are special envelopes and Masses to remember our departed loved ones during November, another cementing of the link between the living and the dead around this time of the year.

Any fears of darkness we had as children in Abbeyknockmoy back in the 1960s had to be banished from our minds on the morning of November 1st, as invariably there was a 5am start to gather the best of the lambs for the traditional November’s Day Fair.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.