Brainstorm | Opinion, Analysis, Reports, Features

A Halloween barm brack with charms including a ring, coin, stick and pea. Photo: St. Connell's Museum & Heritage Centre, Glenties, Co Donegal https://www.facebook.com/www.Museum.ie

The strange meanings attached to charms in Halloween barm bracks

The ring, coin, pea, button, stick or rag you used to find in a Halloween barm brack had different meanings around the country

Food • 23 Oct

Is it a barn or a barm? Let's ask Girnie-Go-Gabby

The Halloween conundrum: is it a barm brack or a barn brack?

A fierce debate broke out in 1927 between Barners and Barmers on on the proper name of the cake associated with Halloween celebrations.

Halloween • 23 Oct

Boo: a selection of plastic Halloween masks from the 1980s. Photo: Reddit Irish History

Masks and black plastic bags: how we used to celebrate Halloween

Despite being associated with the supernatural, Irish people traditionally saw Halloween as a night for fun and games

Halloween • 23 Oct

Dunking for apples at Halloween. Photo: The Schools' Collection by Dúchas © National Folklore Collection UCD licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

The Halloween games Irish children used to play

How did the grandparents and great-grandparents of Ireland's children today celebrate Halloween in times gone by?

Halloween • 23 Oct

Preparing the hearth for the return of the souls. Photo: Caoimhín Ó Danachair (1940) from The Schools' Collection by Dúchas © National Folklore Collection UCD licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0

A visit from the púca: tales of the supernatural at Halloween

Oíche Shamhna was a night associated with tales about púca and other supernatural beings making merry in this world

Folklore • 23 Oct

UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1754: Elizabeth Sawyer, executed as a witch in England 1621. Engraving (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The tale of Elizabeth Sawyer, executed for witchcraft in 1621

The Witch of Edmonton offers a socio-economic commentary on the hypocritical and gendered roots of the witch phenomenon

Witchcraft • 20 Oct

Jack o lantern candle standing on a rock

Is Halloween the new St Patrick's Day festival?

A new scheme is currently being promoted in major international markets like the US, to draw visitors to designated Halloween 'hubs' by 2030

Halloween • 16 Oct

"Cleary was burned to death by her husband and family members, who claimed that they had done so to force fairies to return Cleary, whom the family believed had stolen and replaced with a changeling."

"Darkest Ireland" and the burning of Bridget Cleary

The criminal trial following the 1895 torture and murder of the Tipperary woman was a media sensation home and away.

Folklore • 13 Oct

Bully's Acre in Dublin, a popular hunting ground for medical students seeking bodies for dissection. Photo: Shane McCorristine

The dark, grisly history of body-snatching in Ireland

The 19th century trade in dead bodies saw medical students regularly raiding burial grounds for corpses to dissect

History • 13 Oct

I always feel like somebody's watching me: Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula and Frances Dade as Lucy in the 1931 film of Dracula based on the novel by Bram Stoker. Photo: Culture Club/Getty Images

Was Dracula Irish?

It is possible to view the Count as Irish or influenced by the Ireland of Bram Stoker's time in many ways.

Vampires • 23 Oct

The zombies are on the march. Photo: Danilo Urbina https://www.flickr.com/photos/hojas_cayendo/

Could you survive a zombie apocalypse?

Humans can imagine beating vampires but zombies are a much different matter

Zombies • 13 Oct

'By embedding their fears in tales of spirits and supernatural entities, people could manage the unknown through ritual and belief, placing human anxiety into a structure they could better understand.'

What's behind our fascination with Samhain's haunting legacy?

Beyond spooky costumes and carved pumpkins, Halloween carries an ancient legacy rooted in fear, folklore and the unknown

Halloween • 13 Oct

All you ever wanted to know about vampires

Here's how science can help explain how various vampire legends have developed

Halloween • 13 Oct

Does the road to hell begin in Cork?

How one man's drink-induced unconscious trip in 12th century Cork reshaped how the Western world imagines eternal damnation

Folklore • 08 Oct

'Halloween is an important event in the calendar and marking it in your way makes children feel included and share common experiences with their peers'

6 tips to help kids with sensory issues enjoy Halloween

Halloween can be a unsettling, overwhelming and distressing time for children with sensory issues so here's hold to help

Halloween • 29 Oct 24

There is a sense that Halloween was a time when Oweynagat could open the gates of hell or become an entrance to a magical world." Photo: Gary Dempsey

'Ireland's gate to hell': a Co Roscommon cave and the Otherworld

Oweynagat is a cave linked to many colourful tales in Irish folklore, especially around Halloween

Folklore • 21 Nov 24

The moment when you realise you've ran out of shower gel

What makes a great horror movie so scary?

Halloween is a great time watch a scary movie, but what's the science behind why we keep watching even when it scares us?

Horror Movies • 17 Oct 24

Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555. Image: Everett Collection

5 witchcraft myths debunked by an expert

Popular understandings of the European witch-hunts are riddled with many errors and misconceptions

Folklore • 14 Oct 24

How the Irish really invented Halloween

Halloween is the season which owes its roots to ancient Irish customs and beliefs

Halloween • 23 Oct

Literature from the period is littered with references to fairies, ghouls and monsters emerging from their lairs to torment the human folk on Halloween. Photo: Getty Images

'Great was the darkness': Spooky stories from medieval Ireland

These ghost stories remind us we're not so different from our medieval ancestors: we love a good scare

Halloween • 24 Oct 23

'Dressing up might be fun for us, but it can be frightening and confusing for dogs'

4 ways to keep your dog happy at Halloween

Halloween can be an upsetting and potentially dangerous time for our dogs so here are some ways to change that

Halloween • 11 Oct 22

Is there a ghost in our house? Photo: Tom Tom via Shutterstock

Why do so many of us believe in ghosts?

Between 30% and 50% of us say we believe in ghosts and hauntings and things that go bump in the night

Psychology • 29 Oct 21

"After a day spent blasting rocks and sifting through pottery and bones, Barrett and Plunkett visited a lonely old cottage which they had been informed was haunted". Photo: Wikicommons

The 19th century ghost-hunter and the Co Fermanagh poltergeist

William Barrett was a Victorian physicist who also investigated supernatural phenomena in Ireland

History • 27 Oct 21

"Women still face many challenges, but if we gave our inner cailleach a louder voice, we could overcome these challenges and put our healing powers to good use." Photo: Sierra Koder/ Unsplash

Why witches are for life and not just Halloween

Now is the time for women to regain and rejoice in the wonders of the cailleach and witchery

Folklore • 26 Oct 21

"People made their masks or disguises as grotesque as they could, rubbing their faces with soot, using false names and changed voices"

Why Halloween is celebrated with such spirit in Ireland

'An impulse in Irish tradition is to fearlessly celebrate in the face of unsettling things not fully understood'

Halloween • 21 Oct 21