'You'd miss the ’80s plastic masks when perfect superheroes roam Limerick streets on Halloween'

HALLOWEEN isn’t just a day anymore, it’s become a month-long affair.

By the first of October, skulls are sprouting on neighbours’ lawns, cobwebs are strewn across ditches, and bangers are being left off in nearby fields.

For commuters battling the ever-growing tailbacks around the city in the mornings and evenings, it’s impossible not to notice what some residents are getting up to. One house on Hyde Road could almost charge admission for a full visitor experience, such is the sheer scale of the spooky displays and gore.

Stuck at a standstill for five minutes, this commuter could take in every skeleton, every pumpkin, and every ghastly detail. Meanwhile, anyone with arachnophobia might want to steer clear of the Carey’s Road area - a gigantic spider lurks on one house, likely to haunt your dreams!

READ ALSO: Halloween in Limerick goes big with frights, folklore and family fun

For children now over the age of 12, Halloween has eclipsed Christmas as their favourite time of year. Gone are the days of snap apple, crab apple, and the humble plastic monster mask with razor-sharp edges and tight elastic band. 

The old traditions - homemade costumes fashioned from a black sack or white sheet, a fight over the ring in the barnbrack, and chewing on monkey nuts for days on end - have been replaced by elaborate costumes ordered online well in advance.

Superheroes, film characters and TV icons now roam the streets of the city and roads of the county on October 31. They carry claw-shaped containers or pumpkin buckets for their treats and goodies rather than flimsy plastic bags. To have celebrated Halloween properly, one must now post a photo online for friends and family to see.

Parents, as ever, no doubt feel the pressure to keep up with the Joneses, with every skeleton that’s hung on a neighboring house and every pumpkin that's picked by a friend's child at a patch.

Like so many events today, the blood seems to have been sucked dry of Halloween’s original, simple charm. What was once a night of homegrown fun, mischief, and imagination is now a month-long spectacle of visual excess, social media validation, and competitiveness. 

We would all do well to encourage the creative side of Halloween a bit more rather than the commercial side.

Get the little ones using their imaginations to make their own masks, assemble costumes from everyday items, and invent their own spooky characters. Did any other siblings of the 1980s make a ghostbuster's proton pack out of a cereal box and tin foil tubing?!! Just us? Ok...moving swiftly on.

It does take more time - and patience - but there’s something truly special about watching a child’s creative mind come alive. Because it’s those moments of homemade magic and mischief that really stand out and stay in the memory when these little witches and skeletons grow up.