High street tat is the real Halloween horror show

Trick or treat, because nobody except actual Irish people can pronounce Oíche Samhain, never mind spell it, writes Suzanne Harrington

OH HALLOWEEN, everyone thinks you’re American now. How that must rankle, to be viewed as a kids’ version of the far cooler Day of the Dead. I always thought ‘cultural misappropriation’ referred to the fury of liberals when non Native American teenagers wore Top Shop feather headdresses to music festivals, but maybe it really means what Walmart has done to Halloween. Or for Halloween, depending on your perspective.

Halloween has completed a strange triangular trajectory. From its ancient pagan Irish roots, it long ago went to America where it has been living happily — if gaudily — with Irish Americans, and lots of other Americans, ever since. Trick or treat, because nobody except actual Irish people can pronounce Oíche Samhain, never mind spell it.