Buckle up for the ride: we’re off to visit some super-scary places in Ireland, the home of Halloween. But isn’t Halloween an American tradition I hear you say? Well, yes and no. While no-one celebrates Halloween quite like Americans do (check out these Halloween photos from some of our U.S. road trips), many people are unaware that Halloween has its roots in Ireland.
The spooky celebrations began as Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”), an ancient Celtic festival celebrated more than 2,000 years ago. Marking the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter, it was a time when the Celts believed the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest. Bonfires were lit, costumes were worn to ward off spirits, and offerings were made to appease the otherworldly beings. Tourism Ireland has a great video about it here.
Today in Ireland, the Púca Festival in County Meath reimagines these ancient traditions (October 31 to November 3), while in Northern Ireland, Derry Halloween is renowned for being one of the best Halloween festivals in the world (October 27 to 31). In Dublin, the Bram Stoker Festival (October 25 to 28) celebrates the legacy of one of Ireland’s most beloved writers, Dracula author Bram Stoker, with outdoor spectacles, choral performances and plays.
The scary stuff doesn’t have to wait for Halloween. From haunted castles to ghostly tours, Ireland has you covered, whatever time of year you visit. Here are some to put on your list.
Take a Ghost Tour
You can’t miss the Ghostbus as it snakes its way through Dublin – this purple double-decker is emblazoned with ghoulish characters and it only gets scarier when you walk inside, with its thick black curtain and bone-chilling tales. You’ll travel to Dublin’s most haunted sights, with actors telling stories of body snatchers, ghosts and paranormal activity.
In the medieval city of Kilkenny, there are ghouls around every corner. On a walk with Kilkenny Ghost Tours, you’ll stroll the cobbled, narrow streets guided by one of those very characters, such as Dame Alice Ketyler, the first woman to be tried as a witch in Ireland.
Things are spookier still in Belfast’s Titanic Dock, where you can not only take a Supernatural Ghost Tour, but help to find the spirits yourself, using EMF (electro-magnetic field) meters. Under the blanket of nightfall, you’ll head 40ft below sea level in the dry dock in what was once the most dangerous part of the shipyard.
Hike the Hell Fire Club
The abandoned hunting lodge known as the Hell Fire Club overlooking Dublin city has a mysterious, spine-chilling feel, the empty arched windows giving a glimpse into the eerily dark space within. And while it’s more commonly used as a spot for Dublin hikers and dog walkers, this was once a meeting ground for the dark-arts loving 18th century Irish Hellfire Club, described by author Jonathan Swift as “a brace of monsters, blasphemers & bacchanalians”. For the spookiest experience, take a night-time Horror Hike to the site with Hidden Dublin Tours.
See Ireland’s “gate to hell’
Want to see something truly scary? This is the place we wrote about in our 2020 post, Do You Know Where Halloween Originated? Oweynagat in County Roscommon may be part of a complex of more than 250 archaeological sites known as Rathcrogan, but it’s also known as the “gate to hell”. This natural cave, known as a souterrain, is where people believed the gateway to hell opened during Samhain. All the more reason to visit outside of Halloween…
Tour a jail at night
There’s always something ghostly about a former jail but they’re particularly eerie at night. You can visit Belfast’s Crumlin Road Gaol throughout the year on a self-guided visit, but they also run paranormal and night-time tours led by a guide who’ll show you the scariest corners of the jail, like the tunnel and the Hangman’s Cell.
Down in Cork, Spike Island was once the largest prison in the world, a star-shaped fortress just a short boat trip from Cobh. Walking down into the former cells is spooky no matter when you visit, but on an After Dark Tour, you’ll walk the empty corridors at night, sit in solitary and experience what life was like in a place known as Ireland’s Hell.
On Ireland’s eastern coast, Wicklow Gaol is known as one of the most haunted places in all the land. You can get a sense of the supernatural activity on one of their night tours, or even on a special paranormal tour, where you might just see one of the resident ghosts with your own eyes.
Visit a haunted location (or even stay the night…)
Head to Charles Fort in Kinsale on a sunny afternoon and it seems like the last place in which you’d happen upon a ghost. But this fortress has a gory history, and one of the victims of its horrors still roams the grounds to this day. The White Lady, as she’s known, threw herself into the ocean after her father shot her betrothed. (The weather was miserable on the day Food Wine Travel visited Charles Fort in Kinsale – the driving rain and gale-force winds were very scary!)
There are plenty more ghosts in Leap Castle, County Offaly – a place where so many murders took place it makes sense that there are a few restless souls who have stuck around.
Want to go one further and spend the night in a haunted hotel? On the Antrim coast, the 17th-century Ballygally Castle is home to the spirit of Lady Isabella Shaw, whose husband locked her in the top of the turret after she gave birth to a daughter instead of the son he wanted. When she tried to escape, she fell to her death on the rocks below. Some guests see her walk the corridors to this day, and you can even see the room where she was imprisoned.
Discover a haunted tomb
In 1867, renovations began at St Columb’s Cathedral in Derry~Londonderry. The works disturbed the grave of William Higgins, the former bishop. People have since heard footsteps in locked rooms, the sound of the organ echoing through the nave, and seen ghostly apparitions in photographs. Who knows what you’ll see when you visit?
The above list of super-scary places in Ireland was compiled by Tourism Ireland. We’ve visited a number of places on the list and can vouch for them being super-scary!
Another place I would have added to this list is St Michan’s Church in Dublin, where the mummies in the crypt are super-scary (one 800-year-old mummy reaches out of a coffin as if to shake your hand …) Sadly, the crypt was damaged in an arson attack earlier this year and it’s not yet known if the mummies can be salvaged or if the crypt will re-open to visitors. Very ghoulish indeed.
If you’d like to know more about the origins of Halloween, we can highly recommend two YouTube videos, this one by the Head of the School of Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore at University College Dublin, Dr Kelly Fitzgerald, and this one by Clodagh Doyle, Keeper of the Irish Folklife Division at the National Museum of Ireland. Fascinating stuff.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy our other Food Wine Travel posts on Halloween.
