hallowe'en

Happy Halloween or Hallowe'en depending on how you like it!!

As I write this there is loads of kids outside doing what they do best. Going from one house to the other looking in their costumes for sweets! This is accompanied in the background with the lovely sound of people blowing things up with fireworks and the likes! Its great. Not to mention the gangs going around egging buses, cars, houses and passers by. What a night. Its also the one night of the year they the girls can dress like whores and get away with it!! That's when everyone dresses up in fancy dress, and costumes of all sorts, and hits the pubs and clubs in town. FreskScene maybe the most popular of spots for tonight!! Overall there is always a strange feeling that I get each Halloween!

A lot of people I've been talking to think its an American Holiday, so here is the facts to put the record straight! (Thanks Wikipedia)

The term "Halloween" is derived from Hallowe'en, an old contraction, still retained in Ireland, Scotland and some parts of Canada, of "All Hallow's Eve," so called as it is the evening (or eve) before the feast of All Saints (an important day in the Christian calendar), which used to be called "All Hallows" derived from All Hallowed Souls. In Ireland, the name was Hallow Eve and this name is still used by some older people. Halloween was formerly also sometimes called All Saints' Eve. The holiday was a day of religious festivities in various northern European pagan traditions, until it was appropriated by Christian missionaries and given a Christian reinterpretation.

More on Halloween and the History and folklore of Halloween.

I'm not going out tonight myself. At the moment I'm watching Harry Potter agus An Seomra Diamhair or Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Irish!!