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I often come across articles this time of yr Proclaim Halloween a contemporary type of the pagan Irish holiday Samhain – pronounced SAW-en. But as a historian of Ireland and its medieval literatureI can let you know: Samhain is Irish. It's not Halloween.

The Irish are sometimes given credit – or blame – for the bonfires, pranksters, witches, jack-o-lanterns and beggars who go from house to deal with threatening tricks and asking for treats.

The first skilled folklorists of the Nineteenth century were those that created a continuous line from Samhain to Halloween. Oxford University John Rhys And James Frazer from the University of Cambridge were all in favour of discovering the origins of their national cultures.

They observed customs that also existed in rural areas of Britain and Ireland and looked to medieval texts for evidence that these practices and beliefs had ancient pagan roots. They mixed stories of magic and paganism with harvest festivals and rumors of human sacrifice, and echoes of this may still be found today outdated theories on web sites.

But the Halloween we rejoice today has more to do with the English, a Ninth-century pope, and America's obsession with consumerism.

A change of seasons

For two millennia, Samhain, the night of October thirty first, has marked the transition from summer to winter within the Irish calendar. It was one in all 4 seasonal signposts in agricultural and pastoral societies.

After Samhain, people brought animals indoors to provide them refuge from the long, cold winter nights. ImbolcFebruary 1st marked the beginning of the lambing season, followed by spring planting. Beltaine signaled the start of the mating season for humans and animals on May 1st reduction The harvest began on August 1st.

But regardless of the ancient Irish did on October thirty first is lost to scholars because there is sort of no evidence for it pagan traditions apart from legends written by churchmen around 800 AD, some 400 years after the Irish began to turn out to be Christians. Although they wrote in regards to the adventures of their ancestors, churchmen could only imagine the vanished pagan customs.

An otherworld that’s more utopian than frightening

This Stories in regards to the pagan past told of Irish kings holding week-long festivals, markets and games at Samhain yearly. The day ended early in northwestern Europe, before 5 p.m. and the winter nights were long. After sunset, people went inside to eat, drink and hearken to the storytellers.

The stories didn’t associate Samhain with death and terror. But they viewed Samhain as an evening of magic by which the Otherworld – what was referred to as “sí” in Irish – opened its gates to mortals. A story: “The Adventure of Nera“warned that if one went out on Samhain evening, one might meet dead men or warriors from the Sí or unknowingly wander into the opposite world.

When Nera set out on a challenge, he encountered a thirsty corpse while on the lookout for something to drink and unknowingly followed warriors through a portal into the opposite world. But as an alternative of ghosts and terror, Nera found love. He ended up marrying a “ban sídh” – pronounced “BAN-shee” – an otherworldly woman. But here's the medieval twist to the story: he lived happily ever after on this other world together with his family and his farm.

The Irish otherworld was not helleither. In medieval legends it’s a sunny place in everlasting spring. Everyone who lives there’s beautiful, powerful, immortal and blonde. You have good teeth. Mead and wine flow within the rivers, and food appears on command. No sexual act is a sin. The houses sparkle with gemstones and precious metals. Even the horses are perfect.

Tough crackdown on pagan customs

The connection between October thirty first, ghosts and devils was actually the Pope's fault.

In the yr 834 Pope Gregory IV decreed November 1st, the day to rejoice all Christian saints. In English, the vacation became All Hallows Day. The night before – October thirty first – became referred to as All Hallows Eve.

Some Modern interpretations insist otherwise Pope Gregory created All Saints Day to suppress pagan Samhain celebrations. But Gregory knew nothing in regards to the seasonal holidays in ancient Ireland. In reality, he probably did it because everyone celebrated All Saints' Day on different days and Gregory, like other popes, tried to consolidate and control All Saints' Day liturgical calendar.

In the later Middle Ages All Saints Eve emerged as Folk festival of the saints. People went to church and prayed to the saints for favor and blessing. Then they went home to rejoice. Then on November 2nd, they celebrated All Souls Day by praying for the souls of their lost family members, hoping that prayers would help their deceased relatives from purgatory to heaven.

But within the sixteenth century the Protestant rulers of Great Britain and Ireland has abolished the saints' holidays because they’re prayed to Saints seemed idolatrous. Protestant clergy did their best to eliminate popular customs of the early November holiday, comparable to candlelight processions and harvest bonfires.

In the eyes of the clergy, these customs smacked of paganism.

A mixture of traditions

This led to our Halloween filled with costumed beggars and grinning jack-o-lanterns Mess of traditionsstorytelling and Antiquarianism.

Like our ancestors, we consistently Remake our most significant holidays appropriate to the present culture.

Jack-o-lanterns are neither ancient nor Irish. One of the earliest references is one 18th century report about an eponymous Jack who tricked the devil one too repeatedly and was condemned to wander the world perpetually.

Supposedly Jack, or regardless of the hero was called, carved a turnip and stuck a candle into it to make use of as a lantern. But the custom of carving turnips in early November probably originated in England with the celebrations of All Saints' Day and one other holiday, Guy Fawkes Day on November fifth together with his Bonfires and fireworks, and it spread from there.

The ancient bonfires were built by the Irish and British to rejoice Beltainebut not Samhain – not less than not out loud medieval stories.

In Nineteenth century Ireland, All Saints Day was a time for communal dinners and games on the lookout for apples and rejoice the magic of promoting. Girls tried it, for instance Peel apples in an extended bowl; Then they examined the bowls to see what letters they resembled – the initials of their future husbands' names. Boys, despite warnings, sneaked out of the congregation to rise up to mischief by tearing down yard gates or stealing cabbages and hurling them at neighbors' doors.

Halloween with an American twist

Across the Atlantic, these customs first appeared within the mid-Nineteenth century, when Irish, English and lots of other immigrant groups brought their vacations to the United States

In Medieval Scotland”Guiser“These were people in disguise who begged for “soul cake” on All Souls’ Day. These seducers likely became costumed children who threatened—and sometimes caused mischief—if they didn't get treats. Meanwhile, turnedips were carved Jack-o-lanternsbecause pumpkins were plentiful in North America – and so they were easier to carve.

Like Christmas, Valentine's Day and Easter, Halloween eventually became a celebration of consumerism. Companies produce mass-produced goods costumes, Paper decorations And packaged sweets. People in Britain and Ireland blamed Americans for the spread of recent Halloween and its customs. British schools have even tried it abolish the vacation within the Nineties due to its disorderly and demonic connotations.

The only real remnant of Samhain on Halloween is the date. Nowadays nobody expects to find yourself in a romantic relationship anymore. Only those drawn to the traditional Celtic past sense the numinous opening of the Otherworld at Samhain.

But who can say what reality will prevail when the gates swing open within the darkness of October thirty first?

When Barack Obama was elected president, The people of Moneygall in Ireland celebratedBirthplace of Obama's maternal great-great-great-grandfather, the village thought the victory – and a later Visit of the forty fourth President – with pints of Guinness and a kitschy trade in “O'Bama” memorabilia.

In contrast to Reply in Ballymoney Reactions to claims that a possible US president could have Irish ancestry were more cautious.

In 2018, the black father of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Jamaican-born professor Donald Harris, wrote that the family Descendant of a white slave owner Hamilton Brown. Brown was born in Ireland in 1776 before moving to the then British colony of Jamaica.

If Donald Harris' account of his family history is correct, it is probably going that, as with American abolitionists and former slaves Frederick DouglassThe black mother in query – and Harris' ancestor – was a lady on one among Brown's plantations. In such cases, moms and youngsters were often separated shortly after birth.

The consequences of Harris' Irish connections were mainly greeted with shame or silence in Ireland.

Some commentators within the US have interpreted the alleged Irish connection as a sign that the Democrat's family “owned slaves” – the insinuation appears to be that Harris's ancestry means she is a Beneficiaries of the systemSuch claims, after all, negate the undeniable fact that most descendants of plantation owners and enslaved women Product of rapeThe concept that the black descendants of a white plantation owner benefited from slavery is, after all, nonsense, even when it exists consensually.

Although the complete story of Harris' Jamaican and Irish roots may never be known, the ancestral claims nevertheless allow Scholars of Black American and Irish history Take a moment to reflect on Ireland’s complex historical identity.

Colonized and colonizers

Ireland, which was called England’s “first colony”, had an unusual position within the Empire. While many Irish people fought on the front lines against British colonialism at home, played an energetic role within the British imperial project, a colonization project that involved the oppression and enslavement of non-white peoples all over the world.

The work of scientists, including Barbadian historians Sir Hilary Beckleshas highlighted the Irish experience within the Caribbean, from the British invasions there starting within the early seventeenth century, has shown how fundamental the Irish presence in various slave societies was in the event of racial hierarchies.

Desperate for labor and profit, British sugar plantation owners created four- to seven-year indentures for white servants, bringing hundreds of poor Irish to the Caribbean. At the identical time, the plantation owners also imported enslaved Africans.

The latter were favoured as they became lifelong staff. As societies within the Caribbean developed and compelled labour ended, the Irish generally benefited from the developing racial hierarchies. Of course, most remained poor as they dispersed across the Caribbean island looking for work, they usually lacked significant political power in comparison with the British ruling elite. But they’d their freedom.

Contested terrain of Irish identity

The history of the Irish people is understandably dominated by narratives of British colonization and cultural oppression, and the Irish freedom struggleBut a more nuanced conversation reveals how Ireland has been drawn into a few of the darkest corners of recent history.

And here we discover Hamilton BrownHarris' alleged slave-owning ancestor poses an extra challenge to understanding Irish identity.

Brown was born in County Antrim, which is now a part of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. His own ancestors were participants in a colonial project called the Plantation of Ulster within the early seventeenth century, which displaced the native Irish and replaced them with settlers, mostly from Scotland.

The British imperial authorities had all the time considered the northern a part of Ireland to be probably the most problematic, and in order that they saw the substitute of native Catholics with Protestants from Britain as a method to make the country more governable.

Most likely, the Anglican Brown family didn’t discover as Irish in any respect. When hundreds of those settlers moved west toward America within the 18th century, they later referred to themselves as Scots-Irish.

In Jamaica, Brown made his fortune as a lawyer and slave trader in St. Ann's Parish, which he later renamed Brown's City.

Brown was a powerful advocate of flogging and the forced separation of enslaved families. He was also a powerful critic of the abolitionist movement, even accusing leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce of getting “a cloven hoof.”

When Britain officially banned slavery in 1834, 1,200 slaves worked on Brown's plantations, which mainly cultivated sugar cane, and he received compensation of over £12,000 – the equivalent of greater than $12 million today.

Hidden figures

With the expansion of the British Empire, Ireland found itself within the paradoxical role of being each colonist and colonizer. The latter arose from the undeniable fact that the country provided the workforce for the British Army, the civil service and other parts of the imperial infrastructure. Endless poverty and temporary famines in Ireland, people sought opportunities elsewhere, where they found themselves at the underside of the economic scale and despised due to their status as immigrants. Yet they’d the suitable to maneuver freely, marry freely and receive an education – unlike slaves.

Such a bifurcated history complicates the representation of Irish history and identity, and the best way we discuss Obama and Harris's ancestors. Moreover, the hidden figures in these contested stories are sometimes the enslaved women, who were often victims of non-consensual sex, but whose children and descendants form a type of black Irish diaspora whose extent and significance scholars are only now starting to disclose.

Recent initiatives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States have begun to proactively construct community across diverse elements of the Irish diaspora. Engagement and reflection on the complicated ways through which people construct a connection to Ireland is a central a part of the method.

How the current and the past are in harmony

While the reality about Harris' ancestry will probably be difficult to determine, her possible Irish roots are more in step with those of former First Lady Michelle Obama than with those of President Obama. As Rachel Swarns writes in her book “American Tapestry”, Michelle Obama is comparable connected to Ireland through a slave owner.

There has long been a symbiotic relationship between Ireland and American presidents.

If Harris is elected in the autumn, and assuming her genealogical connection to County Antrim is correct, she could be the twenty fourth US President of Irish descent.

But their connections are different in nature from those of previous presidents and subsequently don’t arouse in Ireland the enjoyment that the invention of Obama’s roots or the electrifying Visit of one other Irish-American presidentJohn F. Kennedy, over 60 years ago.

Nor can we expect the identical affection that President Joe Biden has shown toward his own Irish heritage.

But regardless of the circumstances, acknowledging Harris's possible Irish and Scottish roots – alongside her Jamaican, African and Indian ancestry – allows us to reflect on the complexity of history and its impact on the current.

When Barack Obama was elected president, The people of Moneygall in Ireland celebratedBirthplace of Obama's maternal great-great-great-grandfather, the village thought the victory – and a later Visit of the forty fourth President – with pints of Guinness and a kitschy trade in “O'Bama” memorabilia.

In contrast to Reply in Ballymoney Reactions to claims that a possible US president could have Irish ancestry were more cautious.

In 2018, the black father of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Jamaican-born professor Donald Harris, wrote that the family Descendant of a white slave owner Hamilton Brown. Brown was born in Ireland in 1776 before moving to the then British colony of Jamaica.

If Donald Harris' account of his family history is correct, it is probably going that, as with American abolitionists and former slaves Frederick DouglassThe black mother in query – and Harris' ancestor – was a girl on certainly one of Brown's plantations. In such cases, moms and youngsters were often separated shortly after birth.

The consequences of Harris' Irish connections were mainly greeted with shame or silence in Ireland.

Some commentators within the US have interpreted the alleged Irish connection as a sign that the Democrat's family “owned slaves” – the insinuation appears to be that Harris's ancestry means she is a Beneficiaries of the systemSuch claims, in fact, negate the undeniable fact that most descendants of plantation owners and enslaved women Product of rapeThe concept that the black descendants of a white plantation owner benefited from slavery is, in fact, nonsense, even when it exists consensually.

Although the total story of Harris' Jamaican and Irish roots may never be known, the ancestral claims nevertheless allow Scholars of Black American and Irish history Take a moment to reflect on Ireland’s complex historical identity.

Colonized and colonizers

Ireland, which was called England’s “first colony”, had an unusual position within the Empire. While many Irish people fought on the front lines against British colonialism at home, played an energetic role within the British imperial project, a colonization project that involved the oppression and enslavement of non-white peoples world wide.

The work of scientists, including Barbadian historians Sir Hilary Beckleshas highlighted the Irish experience within the Caribbean, from the British invasions there starting within the early seventeenth century, has shown how fundamental the Irish presence in various slave societies was in the event of racial hierarchies.

Desperate for labor and profit, British sugar plantation owners created four- to seven-year indentures for white servants, bringing hundreds of poor Irish to the Caribbean. At the identical time, the plantation owners also imported enslaved Africans.

The latter were favoured as they became lifelong staff. As societies within the Caribbean developed and compelled labour ended, the Irish generally benefited from the developing racial hierarchies. Of course, most remained poor as they dispersed across the Caribbean island searching for work, they usually lacked significant political power in comparison with the British ruling elite. But that they had their freedom.

Contested terrain of Irish identity

The history of the Irish people is understandably dominated by narratives of British colonization and cultural oppression, and the Irish freedom struggleBut a more nuanced conversation reveals how Ireland has been drawn into a few of the darkest corners of contemporary history.

And here we discover Hamilton BrownHarris' alleged slave-owning ancestor poses an additional challenge to understanding Irish identity.

Brown was born in County Antrim, which is now a part of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom. His own ancestors were participants in a colonial project called the Plantation of Ulster within the early seventeenth century, which displaced the native Irish and replaced them with settlers, mostly from Scotland.

The British imperial authorities had all the time considered the northern a part of Ireland to be essentially the most problematic, and in order that they saw the alternative of native Catholics with Protestants from Britain as a strategy to make the country more governable.

Most likely, the Anglican Brown family didn’t discover as Irish in any respect. When hundreds of those settlers moved west toward America within the 18th century, they later referred to themselves as Scots-Irish.

In Jamaica, Brown made his fortune as a lawyer and slave trader in St. Ann's Parish, which he later renamed Brown's City.

Brown was a robust advocate of flogging and the forced separation of enslaved families. He was also a robust critic of the abolitionist movement, even accusing leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce of getting “a cloven hoof.”

When Britain officially banned slavery in 1834, 1,200 slaves worked on Brown's plantations, which mainly cultivated sugar cane, and he received compensation of over £12,000 – the equivalent of greater than $12 million today.

Hidden figures

With the expansion of the British Empire, Ireland found itself within the paradoxical role of being each colonist and colonizer. The latter arose from the undeniable fact that the country provided the workforce for the British Army, the civil service and other parts of the imperial infrastructure. Endless poverty and temporary famines in Ireland, people sought opportunities elsewhere, where they found themselves at the underside of the economic scale and despised due to their status as immigrants. Yet that they had the precise to maneuver freely, marry freely and receive an education – unlike slaves.

Such a bifurcated history complicates the representation of Irish history and identity, and the way in which we speak about Obama and Harris's ancestors. Moreover, the hidden figures in these contested stories are sometimes the enslaved women, who were often victims of non-consensual sex, but whose children and descendants form a form of black Irish diaspora whose extent and significance scholars are only now starting to disclose.

Recent initiatives in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States have begun to proactively construct community across diverse elements of the Irish diaspora. Engagement and reflection on the complicated ways wherein people construct a connection to Ireland is a central a part of the method.

How the current and the past are in harmony

While the reality about Harris' ancestry will probably be difficult to determine, her possible Irish roots are more according to those of former First Lady Michelle Obama than with those of President Obama. As Rachel Swarns writes in her book “American Tapestry”, Michelle Obama is comparable connected to Ireland through a slave owner.

There has long been a symbiotic relationship between Ireland and American presidents.

If Harris is elected in the autumn, and assuming her genealogical connection to County Antrim is correct, she can be the twenty fourth US President of Irish descent.

But their connections are different in nature from those of previous presidents and due to this fact don’t arouse in Ireland the enjoyment that the invention of Obama’s roots or the electrifying Visit of one other Irish-American presidentJohn F. Kennedy, over 60 years ago.

Nor can we expect the identical affection that President Joe Biden has shown toward his own Irish heritage.

But regardless of the circumstances, acknowledging Harris's possible Irish and Scottish roots – alongside her Jamaican, African and Indian ancestry – allows us to reflect on the complexity of history and its impact on the current.

Although Frederick Douglass Although he’s the best-known abolitionist to go to Ireland within the many years before the American Civil War, he was not the just one.

In addition, as much as 30 black abolitionists and activists traveled to Ireland between 1790 and 1860. Olaudah Equiano was one among them. Equiano was born in Africa and kidnapped on the age of about 10. However, he later bought his freedom, wrote a best-selling autobiography and arrived in 1791 as a guest of the United Irishmen, a gaggle of radical nationalists.

Another was Sarah Parker Remondwho got here to Ireland in 1859 and stayed with the identical family that had hosted Douglass 14 years earlier. After experiencing equality for the primary time, she couldn’t bear to return to America.

Instead, she accomplished her studies at a school in London and moved to Italy, where she trained as a health care provider. Both Equiano and Parker Remond worked closely with Irish abolitionists.

Even before Douglass arrived in Ireland in 1845, he was aware of the wealthy tradition of Irish men and ladies involved within the transatlantic movement to finish the American slavery system.

In particular, he was an admirer of the Irish nationalist leader Daniel O’Connell. A vocal critic of slaveryO'Connell played a crucial role in finish it within the British Empire in 1833.

The Making of an Abolitionist

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born a slave in Maryland in 1818 and met his enslaved mother only a couple of times before she died. His father was widely believed to be the white owner of the plantation.

At the age of 20, Frederick fled to New York, where he modified his last name to Douglass.

Although he could have continued on to Canada, where he would have been secure, he selected to remain within the United States and work for the abolitionists. Although Douglass had no formal education, he proved to be a superb orator who had experienced slavery firsthand.

Douglass' fundamental motivation for travelling to Great Britain in August 1845 was to avoid being enslaved again. Seven years earlier, Douglass had declared himself free. However, under American law, he was still considered a “runaway slave” and will subsequently be caught at any time.

At the age of 27, due to his lectures, he was American Anti-Slavery Society and the success of his autobiography, which he published in May 1845.

Obviously he was a thorn within the side of slavery and its supporters.

The 12 months before his visit to Ireland, Douglass wrote:

“The true and only reliable movement for the abolition of slavery in this country and throughout the world is a great moral and religious movement. Its object is to enlighten the public, to quicken and enlighten the dead conscience of the nation, and to make them feel the gross injustice, fraud, wrong, and inhumanity of the enslavement of their fellow men.”

The fight in Ireland

Douglass was reluctant to go away America because he was married and the daddy of 4 young children.

Two days after his arrival within the port of Liverpool, Douglass travelled to Ireland, where a number one Irish abolitionist, Richard Webbhad offered to reprint Douglass's autobiography to offer him with much-needed income. Douglass had only intended to spend a couple of days in Dublin, but after the nice and cozy welcome he received, he ended up staying for 4 months.

During this time he gave nearly 50 lectures across the country. Despite his busy schedule, he described these months because the “happiest“ Period of his life:

“I am living a new life. The cordial and generous co-operation which I have received from the friends of my despised race… and the total absence of anything which appeared to be prejudice against me on account of the color of my skin – is in such strong contrast to my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look upon the transition with wonder and amazement.”

Part of Douglass' transition was based on the political approach of the Irish leader O'Connell and Belief in universal human rights:

“I am a friend of liberty in every climate, every class, and every color. My sympathy for suffering is not confined to the narrow confines of my own green island. No – it extends to every corner of the earth. My heart is abroad, and wherever the poor need to be helped or the slaves to be freed, there my spirit is at home, and I am happy to live there.”

O'Connell had won political rights for Catholicswho were traditionally regarded by the British establishment as second-class residents in Ireland. The comparison didn’t escape Douglass, who a letter from 1846 to the well-known American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison:

“I see much here that reminds me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to raise my voice against American slavery, but I know that the cause of humanity all over the world is one. He who really and truly sympathizes with the American slaves cannot arm his heart against the suffering of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, but cannot understand the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true basis for his opposition to slavery.”

Return to America

In January 1846, Douglass left Ireland to lecture in Scotland and England. During his stay, he became homesick and longed to see his family again.

A gaggle of Irish and British women offered an answer. They raised the cash and accomplished the legal process to purchase Douglass's release.

Douglass returned to America as a free man in April 1847. But his latest status didn’t protect him from prejudice and racial discrimination.

Five years after his return home, Douglass delivered one among his the sharpest attacks on American slavery:

“What does the Fourth of July mean to the American slave? I answer: a day which reveals to him, more than any other day of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty of which he is constantly the victim. To him, your celebration is a farce.”

The long arc of history

In the years following the tip of the American Civil War, Douglass' influence as a global advocate for human rights continued to grow.

In 1887 he visited Ireland again, this time as an American citizen, holding a passport and being allowed to cross the Atlantic in a first-class cabin.

Douglass explained that the explanation for the trip was “to look into the faces of the people who had been kind to me 40 years ago.”

Sadly, most of them were dead.

During this visit, Douglass announced his support for Irish nationalists and their long struggle for independence.

Back home, Douglass continued the fight against “the hidden practices of men who have not yet given up the idea of ​​dominion and domination over their fellow men.”

Douglass believed that further resistance was vital and quoted three words he had learned from O'Connell in Dublin in 1845: “Agitate, agitate, agitate.”