Hankering back to happy hitherto Halloweens

Isn’t it funny how some little insignificant thing can lodge in your mind for no reason? I remember being highly amused by a sketch cartoon I came across in a magazine a long time ago.

A gardener was digging in the soil and had just unearthed a large worm, sticking its head above the clay. From the headland, a robin was lining up the worm, oblivious to the big tom cat crouched and waiting to spring on the bird. Meanwhile the mean looking bulldog was getting ready to time his run at the cat! There were two neighbours, elbows resting on the fence watching the drama develop, and one remarked to the other: ‘this one is going to be interesting!’.

The above scenario was little different to the home homologue at Halloween-time during my childhood. I refer to watching the ring and who would get it in the Halloween barmbrack.

Halloween wasn’t as big a deal then as it is today; but nonetheless, the pagan feast of Samhain was marked by ancient customs, storytelling and a range of games, (mostly devilment) taking liberties with the neighbours and their property.

But back to the brack: the Halloween brack from Briody’s Shop was the Halloween highlight in Casa Comaskey. Being the lucky eater to land the ring assumed an importance of unimaginable status. Hence the parallel with the sketch cartoon.

Our mother would slice the brack, all the time coming under greater scrutiny than referee James McGrath might in a hurling final. The brack was buttered, a slice at a time and dished out in no particular order. Nobody wanted the first slice and that convention backfired spectacularly one year when the three-year-old nearly chocked trying to eat a heel with a ring in it.

Still, I suspect that our mammy knew which slice contained the ring and who was most entitled to it. We all remembered who was lucky the previous year and no child ever managed back-to-back wins!

My English cousin, Sean Jefferies, brought new games and tricks to our neighbourhood. The ‘Beano’ and the ‘Dandy’ were a rich source of foreign antics for us living in the bog. The creative making of masks, dressing up, witch hunting and the candle in the hewn out turnip were all Sean’s teachings.

There were no ‘trick or treats’ in those days but I remember the endless fun the Reillys and ourselves got from trying to bite the suspended apple on a string from our kitchen ceiling. I perfected a method where I head-butted the apple and opened my mouth wide for the rebound.

This way, sharp teeth got to bite a piece of apple. This evening of boisterous fun would conclude with my father (if he was in the mood) repeating his yarn about the cardplay in a house on Halloween night. A stranger came in and asked if he could play a hand. Sometime during the game a player dropped a card on the floor and stooped to pick it up. It was then he saw that the feet of the stranger were cloven… the devil had called!

But how could I have almost forgotten about the nuts, probably the most pleasurable part of Halloween and certainly the greatest value. Hazel nuts, monkey nuts, walnuts were incredible value for money in Briody’s and we feasted to our hearts content for more than one day. Mrs Briody or Jane Forde were generous near the scales of a bag of nuts coming into a house like ours.

Some customs of the time bordered on soft vandalism. Bigger lads might climb on the roof of a house and throw a wet sack over the chimney, thus filling the house with smoke. The lifting of gates was another troublesome high jinks – although in fairness, I never heard of a gate being lifted where livestock could escape.

Taking the wheels from a cart and hanging same from the branch of a tree was not unheard of either. And before an old neighbour thinks they have just solved a cold case… I nor my brothers did not do any of those things!

The ritual of religious duty was an integral part of those days. It may seem strange to highlight the importance of two religious feast days which ran side by side with the ancient pagan celebration. November 1 was All Hallows, or All Saints Day; and November 2 was All Souls Day. Anyway, what that meant was that on one day we prayed for the saints who weren’t known and on the other we prayed for the souls in Purgatory who were in need of our prayers.

As we regularly say here in this column, times have changed, and that includes Halloween activities. All sorts of pre-packed goodies can be sourced in the supermarket. Kids call door to door and come away rewarded for just a knock on the door. But are there the same thrills, spills and excitement that we were able to manufacture for ourselves in the long ago? I don’t think so…

Don’t Forget

If you love life, life will love you back.