The Icarian

Halloween came from an Irish hole in the ground.

In an often muddy field near the medieval town of Tulsk in County Roscommon, Ireland, and within the ancient Rathcroghan ritual complex, lies a cave known as Oweynagat.

Oweynagat (pronounced Oen-na-gat), translated from Irish, means Cave of the Cats. The Rathcroghan Visitor Center calls the Oweynagat cave “the home of Halloween.”

The cave is said to be entrance to the Otherworld. It became “Ireland’s Gate to Hell” during the middle ages, when Christianity held sway and the Catholic church sought to co-opt pagan beliefs and rituals. Oweynagat is also said to be the birthplace of Medb (also known as Maeve), legendary queen of Connaught (Connacht).

Queen Medb isn’t the only legendary female to call Oweynagat home.

The cave is also considered the “fit abode” of the Morrígan, a punitive shape-shifting goddess associated with war and fate, with foretelling doom, death, or victory in battle. The Morrígan is also seen as an earth- and sovereignty-goddess, a guardian of a territory and its people.

Oweynagat is situated near the main mound, a former ring fort, of Rathcroghan. Rathcroghan, Ráth Cruachan in the Irish language, means ‘fort of Cruachan’. Rathcroghan is a 2.3 square mile (6 square kilometers) ancient ritual complex. It is one of six such complexes in Ireland.

Rathcroghan was considered the royal site of Connacht, which today is one of Ireland’s four provinces. Rathcroghan contains 240 individual archaeological sites, 60 of which are protected Irish national monuments. Very little in the way of archeological research has been conducted here. Many of its sites remain shrouded in mystery.

In Irish pagan mythology, on one particular day of the year, Samhain, the boundary between this world and the Otherworld are said to become thin and blurred. Contact with the aos sí (‘spirits’ or ‘fairies’) and the dead are more likely. Samhain (SOW-in) takes place 1 November, but celebration of this liminal festival begins on 31 October – Halloween.

Samhain marks the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the year’s “darker half”. Samhain takes place about halfway between the autumnal equinox and winter solstice. It is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals along with Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasa. It was significant enough that the entrances of some Neolithic passage tombs in Great Britain and Ireland are aligned with the sunrise on Samhain.

With the boundary between the earthly world and the Otherworld more permeable on Samhain, it wasn’t just spirits and fairies that made their way among the living. The souls of dead ancestors were also thought to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. On Samhain, a place was set at the table for departed family members during a meal.

In traditional Irish tales, all manner of destructive creatures emerged from Oweynagat in during Samhain.

• In the Irish folk tale “Bricriu’s Feast,” magical wildcats spring from the cave and attack the three Ulster warriors before being tamed by Cúchulainn. The name Oweynagat may come from the magical wildcats in the story.
• Ellen Trechen, a three- headed monster, came out of the cave and rampaged across the country before being killed.
• Small red birds flew from the cave, killing every plant they breathed on before being hunted down.
• Herds of pigs with decaying powers emerged from the cave with King Ailill and Queen Medb trying to hunt them down. However, these homicidal swine could vanish and shed captured flesh.

Meanwhile, back in something more like the real world, cattle were brought down from summer pastures and livestock were slaughtered during Samhain.

During the pagan era, Samhain represented the end of the year and the beginning of winter.

Samhain was celebrated with gatherings, feasts, bonfires and sacrifices. The bonfires were believed to have protective and cleansing powers. The spirits let loose on Samhain were appeased with offerings of food and drink to make sure people and livestock survived the winter.

The rituals of Samhain were first described in Irish literature in the 9th century as the Catholic church was converting the festival into a Christian holy day. However, the Samhain festival had been taking place for at least 1,000 years before that. Similar Celtic festivals also took place in Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, and on the Isle of Man.

Wearing costumes – mumming and guising – became part of Samhain at least by the 16th century. People went door-to-door in costume, reciting verses in exchange for food.

Sound familiar?

Wearing costumes may have been a way of imitating and disguising oneself from the aos sí – the spirits and fairies, especially if you were anywhere near Oweynagat. Divination, predicting the future or interpreting events, often involving nuts and apples was also a big part of Samhain.

During the 9th century, the Catholic church declared 1 November as All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day, to Christianize the Samhain festival. All Hallows’ Day, the day in the liturgical year for remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all departed faithful souls. Later, 2 November became All Souls’ Day. In some Latin nations, especially Mexico, 1 November is celebrated as the Day of the Dead, Día de Muertos.

All Hallows’ Day Eve is celebrated in primarily in Western nations on 31 October as Halloween or Hallowe’en, a name originating in Scottish Old English.

Irish and Scottish immigrants brought their Halloween traditions with them to North America, especially during the mid-19th century as many fled the Irish famines or emigrated to find work.

Halloween trick-or-treating, children going house to house asking for candy while wearing costumes, is also related to the practices of mumming or souling. In England, the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, involved both Protestant and Catholic groups of soulers. Soulers went from parish to parish, begging the rich for “soul” cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the cake givers and their friends.

Halloween, especially in America, has evolved into a frighteningly big business.

Americans spent about $12.2 billion on Halloween in 2023, up from $10.6 billion in 2022, according to the National Retail Federation. Of this amount, $3.9 billion went to home decorations, up from $2.7 billion in 2019. The popularity of Halloween decorations has grown in recent years. Retailers are offering a wider range of increasingly elaborate and oversized decorations, such as the increasingly popular giant Skelly skeleton.

Until recently it was possible to go inside Oweynagat, emphasis on possible.

Oweynagat, like many ancient sites in Ireland, is located on private land. The landowner apparently tolerates tourists tromping across their property to climb inside the mysterious cave.

In October 2022 I attempted to visit the Cave of the Cats. Rain, mud, a locked farm gate and a sudden throng of tourists thwarted my attempt.

If there’s an entrance to hell associated with Oweynagat, it begins on the unpaved narrow farm lane that dead ends at a farm gate. One side of the lane is lined with farm houses and outbuildings. The other side of lane is a farm field, bordered by a barbed wire fence and a ditch deep enough to disable vehicles.

Recent rains had turned the unpaved lane to mud and filled the ditch with water. The path to the cave was a strip of muddy water. The nearly knee high grass in field, a pasture, was soaking wet.

When I arrived, I parked near the farm gate in what appeared to be the only place my car might not become stuck in the mud.

As I was trying to figure out how to get around or over the farm gate, several cars and the Rathcroghan visitors center tour van arrived almost simultaneously. If all of the cars and the van parked along the lane with my vehicle, the driveways to the homes on the lane would be blocked

Plus, everyone who emerged from the van and other vehicle was wearing wellies. While I was wearing boots, they were not waterproof wellies.

It was either give up the cave trek and leave or be parked in by other vehicles and being forced to wait for the adventurers to return.

I left. Just to affirm my decision, a downpour began just as I cleared the farm lane and turned back on the narrow, but paved, rural road.

If you visit Rathcroghan, I would strongly recommend going to the visitors center first and then taking the 2.5 hour guided van tour. Unless you happen to be a local or a Rathcroghan scholar, the tour guides know the sites and the roads better than you do.

Admission to the Rathcroghan Museum is €7 for adults, €6 for seniors and students and €4 for children 10 to 17. Rates for groups of 10 or more are €5 each.
https://www.rathcroghan.ie/visit-planning/opening-times-facilities/

There are three versions of the Rathcroghan tour, but I recommend the 2.5 hour Rathcroghan Guided Archaeological Tour, which takes place Monday through Friday. Cost of the guided tour (as of 2024) is €21.20 for adults, €19.08 for seniors and students, €16 each for a group of 10 to 19 people, €14 each for 20 or more. The cost of tour includes admission to the museum.

As of late 2024, you cannot enter Oweynagat. The cave itself is closed due to a “health and safety review,” the details of which remain unclear.

If you take a look at photographs of both the exterior and interior of the cave, it’s not hard to see how the cave might become a threat to the health and safety of visitors.

This portion of County Roscommon where Rathcrohgan is located sits atop a karst plane, an area of flowing underground rivers, caves and springs. In some locations the water table is very near the surface. It’s possible water could enter the cave, but this is just a guess on my part.

The website Caves of Ireland, created by Dublin-based cave photographer Robert Mulraney, provides excellent visual and text documentation of Oweynagat.

Oweynagat (‘Cave of the Cats’), Co. Roscommon.

In his description of Oweynagat, Robert Mulraney wrote:

“As it stands today, the above-ground monument of Oweynagat is in poor condition. Originally, an earthen mound surrounded the entrance but this was almost entirely removed in the 20th C. construction of the access laneway (Waddell, 1983). Thankfully, however, what is below ground is preserved in excellent condition.

“While not of great speleological significance, Oweynagat (‘Cave of the Cats’) I would argue, is one of the most intriguing archaeological monuments in Ireland. Today it feels hidden away and out of sight located, as it is, essentially in the ditch of a modern field boundary.

“As an archaeological monument it forms part of a complex of 50 archaeological monuments that make up the ancient pre-Christian Connaught royal site of Cruachán. It is therefore of special importance as a cultural adaptation of a natural geological feature.”

Writing on the Our Irish Heritage website, archeologist Gary Dempsey says the cave is located on what was his paternal grandparents farm. Dempsey says his father as a child would guide visitors to the cave. https://www.ouririshheritage.org/content/knowyour5k/oweynagat-cave-of-the-cats

“My father also told me, that the cave went much deeper than it does today, and when the ESB (electricity transmission lines) was installed they used dynamite to blow a hole for the electricity pole. Collapsing the cave, and blowing the front porch off their home,” Dempsey wrote.

Despite the cave’s closure, there are ways to get a look at the cave without breaking a sweat or getting muddy and wet. A 3-D model of the cave can be found online, created by the National Museum of Ireland’s Discovery Program.
https://ogham.celt.dias.ie/site.php?lang=en&site=Rathcroghan

In the Rathcroghan Visitors center there is a detailed diorama showing a cross section of the cave.

Oweynagat cave is a place where the natural and supernatural have comingled for centuries. The myths and rituals spawned from this Irish gash in the ground have been powerful enough to become a cultural phenomenon around the world.

When your doorbell rings on Halloween and that first young costumed trick or treater accepts your candy, you will be connecting directly with an ancient Irish pagan ritual and the Cave of the Cats.