HALLOWEEN,HERITAGE AND FREE FESTIVALS
Just as I was ready to clean up after roasting a chicken recently, I thought this resembled a full moon in a scary looking sky...Fitting for Halloween-perhaps! :-)
(see the actual pic on our FB page)
https://www.facebook.com/360dublincity/
There are plenty of free, family-friendly events, In Dublin, during this Halloween period. The Bram Stoker festival has lots and I’ll mention a few here. Also, the Hellfire Club has recently being the subject of archaeological endeavours. Abarta Heritage have excavated the site and discovered a Neolithic passage tomb, and 360dublincity.com has interviewed the chief archaeologist.
Halloween has changed over the years, becoming big business and catering for adults as well as the children. Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark) best sums it up for me when she said, “If ever there was a holiday that deserves to be commercialized, it's Halloween. We haven't taken it away from kids. We've just expanded it so that the kid in adults can enjoy it, too.”
HALLOWEEN
When we were wee lads (who said during the stone age)Halloween meant scurrying around the neighbourhood, disguised with plastic supermarket bags(yes, they were plentiful and free then) , wearing ‘borrowed’ white bedsheets and tea-towels, our faces smeared with coal soot and our mothers or sisters’ stolen red lipstick used artistically to add gory detail. Then, like wasps at a picnic, we’d make a nuisance of ourselves by scourging the neighbours with our constant door-to-door mantra, “Help the Halloween party.”
The holiday is a bit more sophisticated and americanised in this day and age, however. “Trick or Treat” has replaced “Help the Halloween Party,” and purchased or even rental costumes for children have replaced the more ‘resourceful’ paraphernalia from my era.
We created our own fun by building bonfires, sitting around them and telling scary stories to each other. We also played a game whereby we dunked our heads into containers of water in an effort to retrieve an apple--despite the countless bags of apples we got for our “Help the Halloween Party” effort. Our water turning a strange, brownish colour only seemed to add to the challenge. Great craic.
Presently, Halloween is also great fun for this generation of Dublin youngsters, with their Super Hero costumes and other imaginative regalia. As well, there are plenty of organised, free Halloween events in Dublin for kids and families.
DRACULA’S DISCO
Dracula’s Disco (I love that title) for kids age 5 plus, can be enjoyed in The Ark, Eustace St, Dublin
“Come along in costumes of any kind and make up your own graveyard dance moves. If you get tired from dancing you can take a break in our chill out area and you might even get to hear some mysterious Bram Stoker children’s tales.”
Nice one, and maybe scary stories too (don’t look behind you).
DRACULA’S SPOOKY UNDERGROUND SOUND LAB
Another delightful Dracula event for the 5+ generation in The Ark. “Inside the sound lab you will find some of the weirdest musical instruments you’ve ever heard! First you will be shown how to play these instruments and you will explore unusual ways of making sounds with them. After trying out as many as you can, you will choose your favourite instrument and decide the sound you want to make with it. Finally we will put everyone’s chosen sounds and spooky noises together to make one crazy monster sound.”
Just as well Dracula sleeps during the day. He will be a right pain in the neck if the kids wake him early,though.
URBAN LEGENDS
This one is another family-friendly, free event. “Bram Stoker Festival and The Cauldron Of Smithfield are teaming up with Solus Street Art this Halloween for a thrilling, once-off art project celebrating some of the most notoriously villainous characters that once roamed the streets of Smithfield, Stoneybatter and beyond!
A huge panel dedicated to each of our characters will be painted live by the public in selected areas around Smithfield and Stoneybatter, together with paintmaster Solus. Then, on Hallowe’en Night, the finished panels will be assembled on Smithfield Square to form one of the strangest collections of Frightening Freaks and Murderous Maniacs ever to have walked the streets of Dublin.”
Frightening Freaks and Murderous Maniacs, sure what more would you want for nothing?
STOKERLAND
“Stokerland, a pop-up Victorian fun park for families and the eternally young, will open its Gothic Gates on Saturday 29th & Sunday 30th of October in one of Dublin’s most beautiful city-parks, St. Patrick’s Park.
With one of Dublin’s most stunning cathedral as a ghoulish backdrop, this Gothic gathering of fun and games will present the macabre talents of world class street-performers alongside rides and attractions to ensure a fangtastic time for all.”
I think I’ll go to this one, sounds spooktacular! (Sorry, I’m getting carried away now).
HERITAGE
Pat from 360dublincity.com conducted some informative interviews with supervisory archaeologist, Neil Jackman, of Abarta Heritage, on Montpelier Hill (Hellfire Club). Neil explained to the somewhat breathless Pat (well it is a climb from the car-park, God love him) that a large passage tomb, not dissimilar to Newgrange tomb, was uncovered. The archaeologist went on to explain that the Neolithic (5,000 years ago or more) tomb was destroyed by workmen building the Hellfire Club in 1725. The present day find included 5000-year-old flint, charcoal and fragments of burnt bone.
UCD’s Dr. Stephen Davis assisted with a method called LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) to highlight the Montpelier Hill archaeological features. “In this LiDAR image you can clearly see the larger of the two tombs as a raised circular feature directly behind the Hellfire Club, and the smaller to the east. You can also make out landscape features like a large linear feature (a possible road or bridleway) that runs roughly east – west intersected by the Hellfire Club, and a number of linear features running north – south that may represent old forest plantation lines.”
This is a fascinating and interesting discovery and 360dublincity.com will continue with updates on its face book page. If anyone wants to learn more about Abarta Heritage from its website and gain some instructive information regarding the Hellfire Club find, please visit HERE.
More information and detail, including more free events and the paying events for adults, can be had by visiting this Bram Stoker festival website HERE.
Have a great Halloween party.
Tomas O’hArgadain