Halloween 2023: Wicked ways to spend spooky days with the kids in Ireland (2024)

Is your home already starting to fill with pumpkins and gourds? Maybe you will be first in the cinema queue for The Exorcist: Believer, a sequel released next month marking the 50th anniversary of the horror classic. However you feel about Halloween, long gone are the days when it meant bobbing for apples at home and trick-or-treating in a slapdash costume, most likely consisting of a bin bag “cape” or white sheet with eye holes. There’s no shortage of thrills and fun activities to book for a spooky day out.

Pumpkin patches and more

Nothing will get the family in the Halloween spirit quite like fields full of pumpkins, scarecrows and haunted houses. Pick your own pumpkin for your jack-o’-lantern at Mollies Family Farm in Co Offaly (follow on Facebook, €14 for a family of four), on October 21, 22, 28 and 29. At Killarney Pumpkin Farm in Co Kerry (killarneypumpkinfarm.ie, tickets from €16.20), you have to find your way through a corn maze first, and you might bump into a witch along the way. It’s running Friday to Sunday, from now to November 1. Clonfert Pet Farm in Co Kildare (clonfertpetfarm.com, children €19.50 all-inclusive, adults €9) will have lots of family-friendly Halloween activities, as well as a haunted house and funfair, from October 21 to 31. At Causey Farm in Co Meath (causey.ie, tickets €14), the Pooka Spooka event includes a broomstick ride, a scarecrow corn maze and storytelling on October 15, 21, 22, 28 and 31.

Take a tour

For a real scare, older kids and grown-ups should brave the Halloween experiences at Belfast’s Crumlin Road Gaol (crumlinroadgaol.com), from October 13 to Halloween. Choose between a paranormal ghost hunt through the gaol’s most haunted rooms, £25pp, or, if you’re a glutton for punishment, its Jail of Horror is a gruesome scarefest that will test your mettle, £15. There is also a pumpkin patch and a petting zoo for little ones; £15pp with a pumpkin.

If your children are into GAA more than ghouls, the Hurloween tour at Croke Park from October 28-31 is a behind-the-scenes look at the stadium (crokepark.ie, tickets from €12.05 for kids). The Warriors and Hurlers workshop will introduce children to the story of Setanta, a master hurler who used his sliotar and camán to slay the hound of Chulainn.

Spirits and monsters

There’s a reason that many Halloween events are centred on the Boyne Valley. Samhain, the traditional Celtic festival that we now call Halloween, originated in Co Meath. The Spirits of Meath festival (spiritsofmeath.ie) combines family activities, tours and more, from October 4 to November 5. Also worth checking out is Puca in Athboy and Trim (pucafestival.com), from October 27 to 31, a festival combining performance and spectacles with music by the Waterboys, Macy Gray and Damien Dempsey. At Emerald Park (emeraldpark.ie, all access tickets €35), kids can brave the Tricky Trail through a ghoulish graveyard and a forest filled with witches. It runs on October 21 and 22 and over the bank holiday weekend.

Samhain isn’t Ireland’s only haunted heritage. The author of Dracula, Bram Stoker, was born in Clontarf in Dublin, and the city marks it with a four-night celebration (bramstokerfestival.com). The festival will run from October 27-30.

Scares by night

It sounds like the start of a horror movie — unassuming tourists sail to Ireland’s Alcatraz, Spike Island, as darkness closes in, to see what goes bump in the dark. Surely one of Ireland’s most chilling experiences, Spike Island After Dark (spikeislandcork.ie, tickets €30.95) allows you to stroll the abandoned prison’s corridors and listen to disturbing stories that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Tours run on October 13, 14, 20, 21 and 27-31.

If you aren’t afraid of gore, killers and monsters, book yourself in for a screamfest at the Nightmare Realm (thenightmarerealm.ie, tickets from €22) running from October 6 until November 3. Run through a terrifying maze filled with a carnival of killer clowns, and a creepy laboratory struggling with the aftermath of an experiment gone wrong.

Halloween breaks

For a more wholesome and restorative Halloween, book your family a weekend away with a spooky touch. The Johnstown Estate in Co Meath (thejohnstown estate.com) is running a Halloween kids’ club, with storytelling, themed-baked treats and arts and crafts. It’s a great base from which to explore what the home of Samhain has to offer too. The Halloween family staycation, from €690 for two nights for two adults and two children under 12, is available for check-in from October 30 to November 1, with breakfast each morning and dinner on one evening in the Coach House Brasserie.

Meanwhile, at the Lodge at Ashford Castle (thelodgeac.com, from €498), the Halloween package for a family of four is packed with Halloween fun. Visit the hotel’s polytunnels to pick your own pumpkin, then the on-site ghouls and goblins will carve your child’s chosen design. While the kids enjoy Halloween games, movies and treats, there’s some downtime for the grown-ups. On one evening, have a family movie night in your room, and on the second, the adults can enjoy dinner while the kids have a movie and pizza night in the kids’ club. It runs from October 27 to November 3.

For a more grown-up getaway, Mount Juliet Estate (mountjuliet.ie, from €298pps) has a package for couples to enjoy an autumnal tasting menu in the Lady Helen Restaurant, and a whiskey tasting in the cellar. Afterwards, watch a Halloween movie in the plush cinema, with popcorn and a drink brought to you from Bar 1757. It’s on from October 27-29.

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