Preparations are underway across the country for Halloween, but where exactly did Samhain or Halloween originate? Some believe it all began in Co Roscommon.
31 October marks the celebration of Samhain or Halloween, one of the four major pre-Christian Gaelic Pagan Festivals along with Bealtaine, Lughnasadh and Imbolc.
They include burial mounds, ring forts, standing stones, linear earthworks, an Iron Age ritual sanctuary and the cave of Oweynagat, once known as Ireland's"gate to hell", which would open during the festival of Samhain. "The stories tell us of it being a place where creatures, monsters, manifestations emerged out of the on the last day between autumn and winter.
Dr Curley explained how our ancestors believed this cave was a portal to the Irish otherworld, also known as Tír na nÓg, where time passes at a different pace."This place is the entrance to the Irish otherworld, a place that might sound unusual to us we know of it. We know of it as Tír na nÓg, and this is place of never ending quantities of food and where you don't grow old," said Dr Curley.
"We have a huge amount of enquiries but we have to try and limit the number of guided tours so we can make sure that this place survives for the next generation."
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