From graveyard sweets to trick-or-treating

Thorugh Immigrant Eyes

Viktoriia Kantseva

When my family and I arrived in Ireland a few years ago, it happened to be right in the middle of autumn. Almost immediately, we were swept up in the whirlwind of Halloween. Back in Ukraine, Halloween wasn’t really part of our traditional culture. For us, it was something we saw in American films. So stepping into an Irish October for the first time felt like walking straight onto a film set.

We dressed up, painted our faces and headed out for our very first trick-or-treating experience. My daughter, Yeva, was quite small at the time. At first, she was a little shy and bewildered, barely understanding what the kind neighbours were saying to her in English. But after the second house, the magic clicked. With a bucket full of sweets and growing confidence, she was off, beaming with delight at every little chocolate bar. Since then, Halloween in Cavan has become one of our favourite times of the year.

There’s an unmistakable magic in the air: Michael Jackson’s Thriller playing somewhere in the background, children (and quite a few enthusiastic adults!) in brilliant costumes, and houses decorated so elaborately they look like works of art. My only regret is that we live without any immediate neighbours for a couple of kilometres. Otherwise, I’d be handing out sweets at the door all night with absolute joy.

Yet as I watch children run through Irish streets in the pumpkin-lit darkness, my mind sometimes wanders back to how we grew up collecting sweets in Ukraine. We had a completely different tradition. It might sound a little eerie now, but as children, we thought nothing of it.

Instead of Halloween, our big day for collecting sweets came during Pomynky (Memorial Days), usually held in spring after Easter. Families would travel from all over to visit the graves of their loved ones in local cemeteries. And just like trick-or-treating, there was a mission for the children: to walk from grave to grave, collecting the sweets, biscuits and chocolates other families had left on the headstones.

To us, it didn’t feel spooky at all. It was more like a quiet competition to see who could gather the best haul. While the children scouted the pathways for treats, the adults gathered around the small tables and benches beside the graves. They would sit together, eat, drink and share memories of those who had passed away. If the person being remembered had been a smoker, a family member might carefully place a lit cigarette on the tombstone, its smoke curling slowly into the afternoon air as the family raised a glass in their memory.

Looking back, collecting chocolates from tombstones while a cigarette smouldered beside a photograph might sound extraordinary to an Irish reader. But to us, it was simply part of how families remembered the people they had lost. The customs were different, yet both traditions made room for children, sweets and the stories families carried with them.

Ireland gave us ghosts in costumes, glowing pumpkins and laughter in the autumn dark. Ukraine gave us spring afternoons in cemeteries, family tables beside the graves and childhood pockets filled with sweets. Different seasons, different customs, but both are part of the childhood memories we carry with us.

Happy Halloween!