The trouble with Halloween isn’t just, as Rachel Johnson points out today, that it’s the occasion for large scale larceny by the young and conspicuous ghoul-related consumption by adults on an indecent scale; it’s also a loathsome revenant of its former self. I grew up with Halloween in its old form in Ireland and I can tell you right now that no one thought of spending money on imitation spider webbing, let alone zombie exclusion placards and no one resorted to pumpkins of any description — this was the turnip era. But then that was the time before Halloween, having been taken to America by Irish migrants, returned to Ireland and Britain in a hideous and unrecognisable form.
