It’s that time of year again! No, not Christmas time – as many storefronts would already suggest – it’s Halloween time! Fall in Ireland is largely the same as fall in the states, or at least in New England. The leaves have changed color and begun to fall, the temperatures have started to drop, and the shops of downtown Limerick and throughout the country have transformed into impressive collections of holiday themed advertising – from Halloween to Christmas. Unfortunately, I won’t be here to experience a true Irish holiday such as St. Patrick’s Day, but I will at least share what I will be here for. This blog is going to go through the usual big three holidays of the fall back home, and how they may or may not be different being in Ireland.
Halloween in Ireland is quite a big deal! I’m not sure exactly what I was expecting, but the UL threw a big Halloween party headlined by Sean Kingston, and just about every bar and club in Limerick is competing for the spotlight with various events throughout the weekend. This past weekend will have also been our first and only national holiday in Ireland, as they don’t have Columbus Day or Veterans Day that would normally grant us some reprieve during our fall semester. In Ireland, they have three “bank holidays” throughout the year where basically every public entity in the country shuts down for the day to get some rest. Our only bank holiday during the semester fell on Monday the 30th, the day before Halloween, making our Halloween weekend a little longer.
Many of the Irish students consider Halloween to be a very important holiday, some even claiming to my American friends that they take Halloween far more seriously here than we do. The only aspect in which I can confirm this to be true in academics. Multiple classes here have been cancelled on Wednesday (the day after Halloween) due to the assumption that too many students will be partying Tuesday night to want to come to class Wednesday morning. I can’t imagine a professor at Northeastern being that lenient with class just to let their students party, but the professors here seem to be a bit more relaxed.
Now moving on to the next holiday this fall. While obviously Ireland doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, the 3 Americans in my house plan on treating our European housemates to a proper American feast. It’s still only October, but I’m already excited to bring my housemates into this American tradition in the same way they have introduced new foods and experiences to me. The only difficult part of Thanksgiving as far as we can tell will be finding cranberries for cranberry sauce. We have confirmed that we can find whole turkeys, squash, potatoes (obviously), and all the necessary desserts here in Ireland. Unfortunately, our Thanksgiving extravaganza will have to take place on a school night around our regularly scheduled activities, but we would be remiss to let turkey day go by without celebrating.
While Thanksgiving as a holiday is completely isolated to American history, there are significantly more people with interest in our Thanksgiving day pastime – American football – than I had expected before coming to Ireland. The Irish and Germans in particular are familiar with American football. And while it gets nothing close to the fanfare it does in America here, I’ve seen multiple New England Patriots jerseys and hats around campus on Irish students on gameday. The most surprising thing about this is that they watch the games despite the time difference. While football works better than many American sports like baseball and basketball that tend to play later in the afternoon or evening, there are still many games (including the Superbowl) that wouldn’t begin here until after midnight. I will note however that I have also seen a fare share of Red Sox and Yankees caps around campus, making a particularly strong showing this October as both iconic teams made their way to the postseason playoffs for the World Series of Baseball. This is even more surprising than football as I can attest (as a Sox fan) to the difficulty of staying up until 4AM Ireland’s time to catch a weekday night baseball game.
Now on to Christmas. Certainly the biggest of the three mentioned in this blog, believe it or not, I would say the Christmas season is already underway here. By October 10th, I could buy Santa shaped chocolates in the grocery store. A week later, Christmas markets, events, and Santa visits around Limerick were popping up on my Facebook, and now at the end of the month every big department store is lit up with Christmas lights and garlands. Back in the states everyone is familiar with the yearly complaints: “Christmas decorations already?!” But here it seems they start (at least by my personal perception) even earlier! Perhaps it is because they don’t have the intermediary holiday of Thanksgiving as a buffer so they are right on to the next one, or perhaps they just love the Christmas season a little bit more than we do.
Part of this could be explained by Ireland’s uniformity of religion compared to the United States. In 2016, 85.14% of citizens of the Republic of Ireland described themselves at Christian in Eurobarometer polls, compared to just 73.7% of Americans in a similar Gallup poll. Christianity makes up the overwhelming majority both here and at home, so the primary religious holidays celebrated are predictably similar.
Apart from enjoying the festivities in Ireland, I’ll also be lucky enough to enjoy a little bit of holiday tradition and festivity in Berlin, where I’ll be venturing off to for a few days before returning home in December after the semester is over. I’ll be staying there with a friend who tells me Berlin is buzzing with events, Christmas markets, and decorations throughout the entire city. Fortunately, I will be returning to the good old USA for the end of December and spending the holidays with my family, it will be nice to be back, but also just a little bit bittersweet to leave my new international family behind.
