Street Spectacles

Spectacle Events | Welcoming the Cailleach

As the nights draw in and Samhain approaches, the veil between our world and the next grows thin. All around the county, spectacle events will terrify and delight in equal measure as performers and carousers roam raucously around the towns and villages of Kerry! The spectacles will see the dramatic arrival of the Cailleach accompanied by drummers, performers and fire elements. The finale of the Kerry Homecoming Festival spectacles will include a Fireworks Display in Tralee on November 1st.

This fabled Cailleach (Hag / Witch) who is said to have ridden on the back of wolves and been the guardian of stags, will be the centrepiece of a thrilling Samhain spectacle in four towns during the festival. The Cailleach is the goddess of the winter months and is said to control the weather and the winds as well as the length and strength of winter. Her season begins on Samhain, October 31st.

She was said to be a shapeshifter, and could transform into a giant bird - "cailleach-oidhche", "the night hag", is old Irish for "owl". In mythology she had seven maidenhoods, bearing children by many husbands, before becoming eternally aged, outliving all her husbands and children. She is said to be the maternal ancestor of every Irish tribe.

On May 1st, the festival of Bealtaine, the Cailleach is said to hand over to Brigid, the Goddess of summer and cast her staff under a holly or gorse bush and turn to stone.She was also the goddess of grain, a vital resource to survive the winter and the last sheath of grain harvested would be dedicated to her, and used to begin the planting for the next season.

The Cailleach is associated with many locations across the Celtic lands. Her ability to form the landscape and mountains means that many prominent mountain landmarks are attributed to her. According to legend, she either dropped or threw stones from her apron as she passed through the land and these grew into rock formations or mountains.

In Kerry’s MacGilliycuddy’s Reeks mountain range is Hag’s Glen, a 4km long valley surrounded by a majestic mountain range containing the country’s highest peak, Carrauntoohill (1,040m). The local legend tells of three hags living in Kerry and after one died, a fight broke out over a hair comb shared between the remaining two. The hag of Hag of Corrán Tuathail (Carrauntoohill) plunged to her death in the lake known as Hag’s Lake, and her footprints and those of the infant she was nursing are said to be visibly imprinted in the rock known as Carraig na Lathí.