Tourism Ireland carves out time to highlight ties to Halloween

Ireland is already well known for its ties to Saint Patrick’s Day, but there is another annual festive event that also originated in the country. 

“How many of you know that Ireland is the home of Halloween?” asked Tourism Ireland’s Director Canada, Sandra Moffatt, kicking off a spirited themed event in Toronto yesterday. “Halloween dates back over 2,000 years. Its origins stem from the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain.”

In fact, a lot of the traditions associated with Halloween in North America are rooted in Ireland.

“Carving pumpkins is a popular pastime around this time of year. Originally back in Ireland, we used to carve turnips,” she shared. “Back in the 1800s when the Irish emigrated en masse to North America we couldn’t find turnips as readily available so that’s when it morphed into carving pumpkins.”

Another connection is the story behind dressing up in costume to trick or treat.

“The Halloween period, Oct. 31, is when the Irish and the ancient Celts thought that the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest, that’s when the spirits came out, and we wanted to protect ourselves,” she noted. “It’s a harvest festival so we used to dress up in costumes and we used to wear animal skins and creepy costumes to protect our crop. And there are other traditions that we know and love today.”

A very Derry Girls halloween pumpkin 

Canadian market booms

Notably, Moffatt said that the Canadian market is going strong when it comes to travel to Ireland. 

“It’s been a really great year for tourism to Ireland from Canada. We are up per cent year-on-year from 2024 and really excitingly, we have moved up to the top 4 source of global tourism revenue into Ireland. So Canada is an incredible market and that is up from 5th in 2023 and up from 7th in 2019 so it really is incredible to see this growth from Canada,” she shared. 

Moffatt attributes some of the growth to increased air connectivity, with an 11 per cent increase in lift year-over-year.

“We’ve got direct air access from Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, Halifax, and we have year-round daily direct from Toronto, and we also got a new nonstop direct from St. John’s in Newfoundland this year as well, which we’re really excited about as well,” she added. 

Tourism Ireland’s Lauren Lamonday and RIT’s Conor Duffy