Arts

How Bord Fáilte is hatching a plan to make Halloween as big as St Patrick’s Day

Ireland is embracing the spooky season more and more every year – and now the tourism body is hatching a plan to claim it as ‘the place Halloween comes from’

The Púca Festival, Trim, Co Meath: Last year’s festival attracted a number of overseas visitors. ‘We do have people who specifically travelled. At the moment about 10 per cent of our ticket sales for this year are overseas’

Walk around any housing estate, village or town at the moment and you will be in no doubt as to what festival is upon us.

Pumpkins, witches, and ghosts peer out from windows and porches, as Ireland embraces Halloween. All across the country, events are taking place to mark the occasion, from processions, such as one by Macnas, the masters of storytelling and pioneers of imagination, in Galway, to pumpkin patches at various farms.

Many ...