5 Irish Halloween Traditions You’ve Never Heard Of

When it comes to Irish Halloween Traditions, you may think you know them all. Hiding the ring in the barm brack, bobbing for apples, trick or treating. What you don’t know, is that we do a good line in very strange traditions, all based around Samhain, our version of Halloween.

Apple And Potato Cake
This was the precurser to barm brack. Potatoes were cooked, cooled and mixed with flour before being baked in a pot over an open fire. Once cooked, it was covered with sliced apples and sugar and cooked for another little while. A ring was popped into the middle, and whoever got it was going to be wed before the year was over.

Get The Fruit In
It was the rules that all blackberries and apples should be harvested by Halloween, because if they were left on the tree, the Halloween spirits would spit on them, and they would be cursed.

Feed The Fairies
A bowl of champ was always left out with a little spoon on Halloween night, so that the fairies would have something nice to eat. It was left either at the entrance to a fairy fort, or beside the nearest Hawthorn tree, where it was believed that the fairies played.

Get The Cabbage
Unwed women were blindfolded on Halloween night, and sent out to pull a head of cabbage. The shape and size of the cabbage were said to resemble the head of her future husband.

 

Mirror, Mirror
Another way for a woman to find out who she was going to marry was by eating an apple and staring into the mirror as the clock struck twelve. Her hubby-to-be was said to appear over her right shoulder, and marriage would be imminent.

 

Photo Credit via Photopin