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[[Image:Halloween.gif|right|thumb]]'''Halloween''' is a holiday associated with candy, ghosts, trick or treating, and the supernatural observed on October 31. The name is shortened from All Hallows' Eve. "Hallow" means saint. As this explanation suggests, Halloween is observed on the day before [[All Saints Day]].

[[Image:Halloween.gif|right|thumb]]'''Halloween''' is a holiday associated with candy, ghosts, trick or treating, and the supernatural observed on October 31. The name is shortened from All Hallows' Eve. "Hallow" means saint. As this explanation suggests, Halloween is observed on the day before [[All Saints Day]].

Connecting Halloween to [[Samhain]], Ireland's All Saints Day, and portraying this holiday as pagan was once ways to discredit Catholic practice. In modern times, the same theories serve a neo-pagan agenda. Both groups end up portraying the devoutly Catholic Ireland of the 18th and 19th centuries as a land of paganism.

Connecting Halloween to [[Samhain]], Ireland's All Saints Day, and portraying this holiday as pagan was once a way to discredit Catholic practice. In modern times, the same theories serve a neo-pagan agenda. Both groups end up portraying the devoutly Catholic Ireland of the 18th and 19th centuries as a land of paganism.

The earliest descriptions of Halloween as a festival refer, not to Ireland at all, but to late 18th century Scotland. The festival combines elements of several holidays that were suppressed in the 16th century as a result of the [[Reformation]]. The spread of the holiday owes much to a poem written by [[Robert Burns]] in 1785. With the Industrial Revolution crushing long-established traditions, the Victorians turned to revivalism to retain connection with the past. The modern child-oriented version of the holiday was established by the early 1900s.

The earliest descriptions of Halloween as a festival refer, not to Ireland at all, but to late 18th century Scotland. The festival combines elements of several holidays that were suppressed in the 16th century as a result of the [[Reformation]]. The spread of the holiday owes much to a poem written by [[Robert Burns]] in 1785. With the Industrial Revolution crushing long-established traditions, the Victorians turned to revivalism to retain connection with the past. The modern child-oriented version of the holiday was established by the early 1900s.