Oweynagat  - the Cave of Cats
How ancient Irish lore, pagan rituals and the Great Famine brought Halloween to a neighborhood near you!

 

Situated on the rural farmland of Rathcroghan, County Roscommon in Ireland, out in a medieval patch of terrain constructed sometime between the 7th and 12th century, there is a natural limestone rift cave that extends about 120 feet underground. Known in medieval texts as dorus iffiirn na Hérend (gateway to Hell) this cave is linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) that marks the end of summer harvest and the beginning of the ”darker” half of the year.

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Oweynagat (meaning, Cave of Cats) is said to be the origin of what we modern humans call Halloween.

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From the earliest references to Oweynagat in the 9th century there is a clear association between Oweynagat and the Otherworld. The Irish Otherworld appears in various stories as a sort of parallel dimension, inhabited by the Tuatha dé Danann, otherwise known as fairies or the sídhe (shee.)
This Cave of Cats is also said to be the earthly dwelling place of the Celtic shapeshifting goddess of war and fate, the Morrigan, or Phantom Queen. The Morrigan
is often depicted as a crow or raven. Cool.

Yes, there’s a lot going on here and you should expect nothing less from a portal considered the “gateway
to hell.”

Ancient legends state that supernatural beasts (such as a three-headed monster, destructive birds, and evil, phantom pigs, apparently) led by the Morrigan would emerge from the cave on October 31st (the eve of Samhain) when the boundaries between our human world and the spirit realm thinned and blended. To protect themselves from the creatures and spirits spilling out of the Cave of Cats, ancient Celts lit great ritual bonfires and wore hideous costumes and masks to disguise and protect themselves from these supernatural beasts. Offerings of food and drink were also made to appease these otherworldly beings.
Other traditions included story telling, games of divination using apples and hazelnuts to foretell marriage, death and the coming year.
 

As the festival of Samhain and its traditions evolved over some 2,000 years, young people and revelers later took part in "guising" (as mentioned in last week’s issue of An Cailleach)  - dressing in costume, performing pranks and going from house to house as they collected food or fuel or for their communal Samhain bonfire parties, requesting, “Bob nó Bia?” (meaning “money or food?” the precursor to “trick or treat." 
 

In the mid-1800s, at the time of the brutal potato famine,  nearly one million Irish immigrated to the United States in order to survive. With them came their rich culture and practices, including the ancient festival of Samhain with its turnip Jack O’Lanterns, pranks and apple-bobbing. Yep. Halloween was just not a “thing”
in puritanical America until after the Irish arrived.

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I just want to take this time to thank Ireland and the Irish people for all the world-wide contributions to arts and culture made over the centuries. But specifically at this time of year, thank you for one of the most precious, magical, spiritual, and wonderful celebrations at any time of year, Samhain/Halloween.
 

Back to Oweynagat/Cave of Cats, the “birthplace of Halloween.” Now, I have yet not been there myself but my neighbors have.  I’m told, “you will not come out the same person you went in.” That seems like a pretty big deal.  From what I have seen, just to enter the cave takes a whole lot of mental and physical steel and
that’s not even considering the cave spiders.

But I do plan to go in 2027. The site is just too important when you’re a wannabe Morrigan, like me.
-  Patti C.
 

https://www.nationalgeographic.com

https://www.tuatha.ie/oweynagat-cave/