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Breaking stories
Pagan festival of Samhain to kick off
By Elaine Keogh
IT’S not even December but some people are already celebrating the New Year — the Celtic New Year, that is.
This evening, adults and children alike will join in a procession lead by white witches to a hill in Co Meath, where the Pagan festival of Samhain — that became modern-day Halloween — originated.They will chant and light a fire as they recreate the ancient Celtic ritual whereby all the fires in Ireland were extinguished on Halloween and then relit from a single fire — on the Hill of Ward near Athboy.
People would come from every corner of the country to carry back an ember from the Samhain fire and use it to relight those in their own village.
Amongst the witches will be Gemma McGowan from Kells. “The Celts believed that darkness came before the light and that at Samhain the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest,” she said.
The hill is synonymous with the cycle of life because Tlachtga, the ancient Goddess of Magic, is said to have died giving birth to triplet sons on the hill.
Earth-based religions or faiths have grown in popularity in recent times, which fellow witch Bone says is connected to the decline of the Catholic Church.
“There is a spiritual vacuum; people like their ceremony and ritual and we find people look for a link to the past and that continuity in their lives,” he said.
The witches will be part of this evening’s procession from Athboy to the Hill of Ward as part of the Samhain Festival of Fire, beginning at 7.30pm.
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