Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
The Daily PollHALLOWEEN HAPPENS IN the next few days (Tuesday, 31 October … it’s something of a tradition).
The big fans of the day will be gearing up for the week ahead and may have spent a lot of time and thought on dressing up in a Halloween-themed outfit at some stage this week or last.
Will you be dressing up this year – or is it something you leave to the children these days?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Samhain, or Halloween, is the neolithic New Year in this country, where our ancestors divided the year into two halves: a dark period going from November 1st in our calendar to May 1st and a light half going from May back to November. Some neolithic alignments mark the passage of the Sun as it spirals down towards the December Solstice, and, at the beginning of February, the alignment returns, marking the Sun’s expanding spiral towards summer.
It is not possible to get readers in the Journal presently, at least through their silence, to appreciate the cause of the day/night cycle every 24 hours; they are unlikely to appreciate the exquisite reasoning of our ancestors in marking midwinter on the December Solstice and why the New Year begins when it does.
People are not brutes.
@Jimmy Wallace: you’d be lost. But there are other ‘gangs’ that people like you can join, that may cater for people of your intellect and needs.
There are, of course, considerate people among the readers; however, they are far too silent regarding this island’s timekeeping heritage, which includes Newgrange as a working clock marking the annual cycle.
The reference for the year was the return of a star to its first annual appearance. Using satellite tracking along with the Earth around the Sun, the stars move from left to right.
sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/
Everything to the left of the Sun is an evening appearance, and everything to the right is a morning appearance. When the brightest star, Sirius, is far enough to the right of the Sun as a dawn appearance, it becomes visible, and it is this observation that gives us our present calendar.
Continued:
“.. on account of the procession of the rising of Sirius by one day in 4 years,.. therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the five days added to their end, so one day shall be from this day after every four years added to the five epagomenae before the new year” Egyptian Decree 238 BC.
Unlike the more recent Ptolemaic framework, where the Sun moves through the birth signs, the Egyptians looked at a new grouping of stars emerging at dawn every ten days. This observation made 36 groupings of stars over the year, so they added five days to bridge the gap between the old and new year. They noticed that the central star skipped a first annual appearance after the fourth 365-day cycle. This is how and why we have our present 365/366-day calendar.
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: Are you dressing up or not???
@Jimmy Wallace:
Ah come on lads, I don’t comment much.. but a little kindness goes along way. The first contribution was interesting and informative. Why the need to scorn and belittle one another?
What sort of a world are we creating?
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: Patronising? Pedantic? I think so.
@John Fagan: is new information threatening to you?
Who knows where the 365/366-day calendar system originally came from other than creative and productive societies adapting to what is best, and the Egyptians were the same in leaving the reasoning in their texts?
The 1461 days across four years in our calendar system represent 1461 rotations in proportion to four orbital circuits of the Sun. This proportion reduces to the familiar 365 1/4 rotations for one circuit of the Sun in terms of the daily and annual motions of our home planet.
A 24-hour day is one rotation; however, a year can mean two different things, in this case, a year of 365 days or a leap year of 366 days.
So celebrate Samhain, where the death of the old year mixes with the emergence of the new year as readers walk among the golden leaves today.
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: @Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: Except you’re wrong. The year was divided into four. seasons.
Imbolc – marked the start of spring, the time to sow.
Bealtaine was celebrated as the beginning of summer, growing time.
Lughnasa – the beginning of autumn – harvest time
Samhain – to celebrate the end of harvesting & the beginning of winter.
Sorry to burst your “knowledgeable” bubble.
@cheapskate: I commented to correct his mistake – the year was divided into four, not two – spring, summer, autumn & winter – sowing, growing, harvesting end of harvest and beginning of winter. . There are two solstices, summer & winter. The summer solstice – when the sun is at it’s highest in the sky, & winter, when the sun was at it’s lowest in the sky. The sun is at it’s lowest in the third week of December. The summer solstice occurs on the third week of June. So – neither anywhere near October.
The festival of Samhain on October 3Ist, represents liminality, when the spirits of the dead could move to the living world to visit their families. Their spirits were neither dead nor alive.
@Ann
Samhain is that period when life mingles with death, so with Bealtaine, or the beginning of the light half of the year, these marked the two major divisions, with Samhain being the more important as it was the start of the neolithic New Year.
I had said that the Sun spirals down towards its smallest arc from horizon to horizon on the December Solstice, so alignment like the Mound of the Hostages in Tara captures this event bound by Samhain ( November) and Imbolc ( February). This spectacle allows the Newgrange alignment to mark midwinter between Samhain and Imbolc. I should have said Imbolc as a substitute for February in the first posting, but I don’t treat readers like children, and it would have been implied nonetheless.
At least you replied with something useful.
@Jimmy Wallace: why so slack jawed and passive aggressive?
Why are you scared of knowledge/ curiosity mate ?! . Why doesnit make you lash out under the guise of sarcasm / crap dad humour.
Were you bullied as a “dunce” in school or something ?! Poor chap. I do feel for you..
Contributors here should rightly become familiar with timekeeping as many issues get resolved through familiarity this way, in this case, mathematicians always mistake timekeeping for time, which are two very different things.
“Absolute time, in astronomy, is distinguished from relative by the Equation of Time. For the natural days are truly unequal, though they are commonly considered as equal and used for a measure of time; astronomers correct this inequality for their more accurate deducing of the celestial motions…” Newton
He isn’t describing time; he is attempting to define a timekeeping facility that anchors the 24-hour clock noon to natural noon. The junk of early 20th-century relativity is based on this grave misunderstanding of timekeeping.
Welcome to the 21st century
Nothing scares me more than this current government. I was quoted €12.00 for 4 cans of Coors light yesterday in an off license. 8 cans was a similar price to a bottle of Vodka.
Thankfully I don’t drinkmuch, but I was leaning towards the vodka as it seemed better value. I cannot understand why people did nothing when alcohol prices went up, including me. Cost of living is true the roof, and this pointless increase must be impacting families negatively. Oh, Happy Halloween.
@Michael Mc Gee: your giving out about the price of alcohol? That should be the least of your worries.
@alan scott: You are correct. Free Palestine.
@Michael Mc Gee: free from Hamas agreed who use their own people for propaganda
@alan scott: I couldn’t agree more, but if that wasn’t enough, you have Israel on the other side pulverising them too.
@Michael Mc Gee: My local off licence has increased a bottle of vodka by a fiver,it’s now €24.99. I don’t care,I still bought it and I’m gonna party like it’s 19.99
@Michael Mc Gee: Destroy Hamas.
@Michael Mc Gee: Yes, it’s THROUGH. Prices gone TRUE the roof. Never said a THREWER word.
Their is nothing more to say as this government is robbing there people with they’re inaction.
@Michael Mc Gee: You say that as if there aren’t other religious governments who wouldn’t ‘allow you’ to drink at all. I barely drink myself but I do believe in free choices.
Comments open on Halloween vote…May come back to haunt the Journal.
Fancy dress party tonight, i’m sellotaping a suit case to my head and going as a head case
When I was a child in the 50s we got fruit as a gift, no such thing as sweets. Bring back fruit
@MrBkavanagh: this isn’t true. Fruit wasn’t introduced into Ireland until 1987.
@Richard Scratcher: I beg to differ, I distinctly remember getting fruit, usually apple’s, oranges, pears,various nuts and if you got grapes or a piece of coconut that was considered exotic. As to your statement that fruit wasn’t introduced into Ireland until 1987? I think you should look that up.
@MrBkavanagh: It was nuts when I was a child. Or a single chocolate if you were lucky! I still say DIY costumes are the best.
Our parents set up the dipping for a coin, and the apple on a string. Always a barm breac too.
@F Fitzgerald: Happy memories
@Richard Scratcher: In the 70s when I was young, we had apple and pear trees. We also grew strawberries and gooseberries among other things.
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not celebrate Halloween. They strongly disagree with random strangers going around knocking on peoples doors.
Dressing up as Mary Toilet McDonald
@Mary Toilet:
Oh now I get it. I thought you were from down under.
Jimmy Saville costume.
Don’t need to. I just don’t brush my hair and leave the make up off, then I’m good to go.
I’m dressing up as Didier Drogba
I’m dressing up as Honey Badger i’ll just put an idiot sign above my head.
Il be head to toe in the black shoe polish
But did you take ur mask of this year as u keep it on all year round to hide u name
@Paul Moloney: my name is Paul Moloney
Who’s taking the horse to France?
@Mary Toilet: Nobody knows. I don’t even know what a tracker mortgage is.
If Halloween children come to my doorstep, I’ll reward them with a smile and some lollypops provided they entertain with a song or some instrumental music. No money under any circumstances – they cadge too much off their overspent mortgage-paying parents.
I love seeing the local children enjoying Hallowe’en – they’ve missed out on it since 2019.
Let’s keep it friendly. I wouldn’t press them to perform, maybe it depends on the local expectations, I was a shy child myself. Everyone gets a treat. (Certainly never money, no one’s asking to be mugged!)
Happy Hallowe’en all.
I’m going to be serving now, any minute
@Mary Toilet: u u new made miss pulley
Who is this Ian,and why should we say Hello to him anyway?
Some people a scarier without mask’s.
I mite let herself dress up as HarleyQuinn..
If she behaves.
Thank god this stupid season is almost over. Americanised rubbish sold back to us and we drink it in
Fireworks going off now down the road. I never realised there was so bangers in my neighbourhood.
@Larry Betts: I look for some kind of a pun?
@A D: I apologise. (I don’t get puns.)
(Youtube permits people to delete their own comments. I think that is quite a good system. Click twice to delete thumbs.)
Halloween can be fun with great ideas.
Get cool ideas for Halloween and a lot more using, ChatGPT Warrior – How to Bypass AI Detectors: https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1uNDt
I’m dressing up as a bottle of Redbreast.
have your say