Is Ireland turning to the occult? If you were travelling through the country at this time of year, only to be confronted by the ghoulish image of a “púca” emblazoned on the side of a bus, you might think so. It is all in aid of the “Púca Festival”, Ireland’s latest attempt to market its heritage to the lowest bidder with an example of paddywhackery that puts “Paddy’s Day” itself to shame.
Pitching Ireland as the birthplace of Samhain, Ireland’s “ancient Halloween tradition”, marketing material tells us that the púca is a “shape-shifting character of Irish folklore”. The otherworldly figure comes out with her merry band of havoc-wreakers on the night when “the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead thins”.
