Folklorist Jonny Dillon speaks to Dr Billy Mag Fhloinn about the origins and mystery of Halloween on the folklore podcast, Blúiríní Béaloidis.
For this edition of Blúiríní, Jonny is joined by a special guest, Dr. Billy Mag Fhloinn. Billy is a folklorist, archaeologist, author and lecturer, whose book 'Blood Rite: The Feast of St. Martin in Ireland' was published in 2016, and who has contributed to international television productions by the BBC, PBS and the National Geographic Channel.
Tá go leor, leor ar eolas againn faoi phisreoga na tíre seo ach is tréimhse speisialta í seo a deir Dr Mag Fhloinn ina mbíodh aird faoi leith ag muintir na hÉireann ar spioraid agus iad ag iarraidh fáilte a chur rompu ar Oíche Shamhna.
Deir seanchas na tíre seo go bhfuil an tairseach idir iad seo atá beo agus iad siúd atá marbh níos trédhearcaí agus níos tanaí ná riamh ag an am seo den bhliain agus sin an chúis go dtugtar ómós agus meas dóibh siúd atá imithe romhainn.
The festival of Samhain has since ancient times been considered as a major turning point in the ritual year. In marking the threshold of darkness and the end of the season of light, the eve of Samhain (observed all over Ireland at sundown on the 31st of October) is characterised by heightened supernatural activity, a return of the ancestral dead, divination magic, mischief, ritual disguise and the suspension of normal modes and rules of behaviour.
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Bluiríní Béaloidis is the podcast from The National Folklore Collection, University College Dublin, and is a platform to explore Irish and wider European folk tradition across an array of subject areas and topics. Host Jonny Dillon hopes this tour through the folklore furrow will appeal to those who wish to learn about the richness and depth of their traditional cultural inheritance; that a knowledge and understanding of our past might inform our present and guide our future
