long before squealing trick-or-treaters gathered chocolate bars and candied apples,

before leering jackal lanterns cast their orange glow on suburban porches.

Halloween was a more mythical matter.

For Celtic cultures, the gossamer veil between the living and the dead could become perilously thin in the deep days of autumn. So, donning

masks and costumes, practicing annual rituals, they sought to fool the wandering spirits of the

not so dearly departed. When Irish immigrants crossed the ocean to America, they carried this

mythical baggage along, those ghostly customs, which found purchase in the American psyche,

blossoming into our favorite night of mayhem and make-believe.

When tricks turn to treats, fear becomes fun, and mischief is magical.

Music And boo! Did I scare you? No, I expect not. Well, here we are again in that season of fear, when we all get spooked on purpose. Some folks turn in their front yards into horror movie

sets, eight-foot skeletons, very popular this year I notice. Others just going for the costumes,

equal parts macabre and outlandish. My personal best costume effort was back in the 1990s. Plain

gray suit, must-back hair, little slump to the shoulders, I was middle management.

Had the nameplate and everything. It seemed very clever at the time back in the day.

Greetings, listening, Faithful. Thank you for joining this spirited conversation on the what,

where, when, and why of Halloween. How did this wonderfully colorful, and honestly weird holiday wash up on the shores of our

otherwise god-fearing nation? And then how did we, in typical American fashion, make it our own?

Our guest today is Dr. Kelly Fitzgerald, head of the School of Irish Celtic Studies, and folklore

at University College Dublin.

Truly the ideal guide for this transatlantic conversation, Dr. Fitzgerald is an American-born scholar who makes her home in Ireland.

So we are about to dig down into Halloween's cross-cultural roots, past, present, and spiritual.

Hello, Kelly.

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