The remarkable feature of an increasingly secular culture is that it tries to replace the cycle of the Church’s year with feasts and fasts of its own. In the case of Hallowe’en it has done so by simply appropriating an element of the Church’s year and making it near-unrecognisable.
Hallowe’en is, as the name tells us, associated with the Feast of All Saints of which it is the vigil, and also the feast of All Souls that follows immediately afterwards. It was hardly surprising then that in Ireland, customs to do with ghosts and divination should be associated with the vigil.
