This Halloween the spirit of Púca returns to Ireland’s Ancient East, bringing more mischief and merriment than ever before.
Púca Festival is a spectacular, fun and otherworldly festival celebrating Ireland as the original birthplace of Halloween. In 2021 visitors from home and abroad are being welcomed back for a week of music and mythology, sideshows and standup, cabaret and cocktails, and everything else in between.
Vibrant and contemporary, yet strongly rooted in tradition, Púca festival will take place across County Meath and County Louth, from 23 - 31 October 2021 and for the first time ever the (in)famous Slane Castle is being added to the location lineup, alongside the existing festival hubs of Athboy, Trim and Drogheda, each steeped in Samhain legend and tradition.
'Púca' is typically a shape-shifting creature from Celtic folklore, a familiar character in Ireland's narrative of Halloween, which can be traced back to the ancient Celtic tradition of Samhain. The old Irish for ‘summer’s end’, Samhain marked the end of the harvest season and the start of the New Year, which involved lighting fires, feasting on the crops of the harvest, music, gathering together and storytelling, all of which can be enjoyed by visitors from across the world at Púca Festival this October.