JACKSON, Wyo. — The possible origins of Halloween have a strong tie to Jackson Hole, as both find ancestry in Ireland.
David “Davey” Jackson, the valley’s namesake, was a man of Irish descent. His grandfather John Jackson was born in County Londonderry in Northern Ireland in the early 1700s, and spent roughly 30 years of his life there before being sent to North America as an indentured servant after being convicted of a capital crime for stealing.
County Londonderry is roughly a three hour drive today north of the famous Rathcroghan in County Roscommon, the center of an ancient Iron Age Irish kingdom of Connaught. In Rathcroghan, National Geographic (Nat Geo) confirms Halloween could have originated at the Oweynagat cave, a place where changing, costumed celebrants sacrificed sheep to demonic spirits said to inhabit the cave.
“Rathcroghan encompasses 240 archaeological sites, dating back 5,500 years,” Nat Geo writes. “They include burial mounds, ring forts (settlement sites), standing stones, linear earthworks, an Iron Age ritual sanctuary — and Oweynagat, the so-called gate to hell.”
According to archaeologist and Rathcroghan expert Daniel Curley, Rathcroghan was also the place that the Irish New Year festival of Samhain was born, which was brought by Irish immigrants to the U.S. in the 1800s and morphed into the American Halloween. During the original Samhain, celebrants interacted with Tír na nÓg, Ireland’s otherworld inhabited by beasts, demons and monsters.
“Samhain was when the invisible wall between the living world and the otherworld disappeared,” Mike McCarthy, a Rathcroghan tour guide and researcher, previously told Nat Geo. “A whole host of fearsome otherworldly beasts emerged to ravage the surrounding landscape and make it ready for winter.”
Some of these creatures allegedly escaped via Oweynagat cave, which Nat Geo defines as the “cave of the cats.” People would disguise themselves as fellow ghouls to avoid being kidnapped and dragged back into the cave.
According to the BBC, County Londonderry, where Jackson’s grandfather was from, has a reputation today as “one of the world’s best places to experience the holiday” blend of Samhain and Halloween.
Read more about the evolution of Halloween as we know it here.
