The destinations of choice for witches, vampires and the Headless Horseman didn’t rank as highly as the City of Bones when it comes to celebrating the most haunted night of the year, with Derry scooping the majority of online votes.
Halloween is Ireland’s most ancient festival, a potent potion of pagan and Christian meanings, lore and legend. The earliest form was ‘Samhain’, an end-of-summer festival often known as the Celtic New Year that marked the beginning of the long winter nights. This time of transition became linked with the dead and the otherworld. The Celts lit bonfires to guide and welcome friendly spirits and wore costumes and masks to scare evil away.
Towns and cities across Ireland celebrate Halloween, but it’s Derry that really does it in style. The Banks of the Foyle Halloween Carnival is the largest Halloween celebration in Europe.
This year it runs from Thursday, October 29 until Sunday November 1st. This five day festival will cast a spooky spotlight on the city and all it has to offer in terms of culture, art, imagination and lots of fun. It seems as though the entire population of the city turns out in wild costumes and with upwards of 40,000 festival goers, the streets, dark alleys and the famous Derry Walls, all crowded with wailing witches, vicious vampires and ghastly ghosts. Lots of ghoulish events will be available for all the family to enjoy including a creepy ghost busters tour and night time markets.
Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District, Councillor Elisha McCallion, said: “The event is always a huge visitor attraction in terms of drawing people from all over the world to the city. What makes our celebration really special though is the involvement of the public who never fail each year to stage their own show of creepy and creative Hallowe’en style, and who turn out to support the festival in their thousands.”
This year Halloween in Derry promises to be bigger and better than ever. Dare to enter the Chateau Le Fear haunted house in Ebrington Square, be mesmerised by a spectacle of light and movement at the Awakening of the Walls, dress to impress for the Gothic Ball (held in a 19th century church!) and celebrate the Diwali Festival of Light, all over a week of Halloween happenings in the city.
