The poor, misunderstood Irish.

We think of Celtic people every March 17, credit them with leprechauns and stout beer, and make this proud culture the butt of drinking jokes begun in poor British taste after the Famine. Yet they are so much more. The Celts were highly spiritual.

Case in point: Hallowe’en, which has a much richer, longer tradition of celebration in Ireland than does St. Patrick’s Day. By at least 4,500 years.

A far cry from the gruesomeness of slasher films and monsters, the sensitive sort should be heartened by All Hallows Eve’s Celtic (and earlier Druid) spiritualism. The origins of Hallowe’en lie in Samhain — pronounced “SOW-in” and meaning end of summer, otherwise known as the Celtic new year. Nature’s sleep was mystical to this ancient people, who brought their livestock to lower pastures for the coming cold, marked their final harvest, and shifted daily life closer to home.

The Celts believed this seasonal shift brought with it a natural magic, a spiritual segue to mysticism. They and other cultures believed a brief window opened to their ancestors, when the living might communicate, or simply be nearer, the spirits of loved ones long passed.

Why costumes? Just as all people aren’t harmless, neither were the spirits they became. Some ancient Celts dressed up as well-meaning souls, not to be morbid, but to scare off bad spirits.

Celtic kids didn’t trick-or-treat, but they did wander from door to door to collect firewood for the Samhain bonfire. However, in medieval times on All Souls Day (originally in May, but moved by Pope Gregory to Nov. 1 to compete with Samhain for conversion purposes), children knocked on doors for “soul cakes,” offering prayers for dead relatives as payment, and singing:

“A soul cake! A soul cake!

“Have mercy on all Christian souls, for a soul cake!”

Bobbing for apples? Looking for the candied kind? Hope you’re also looking for love. Celts associated apples with goddesses of love and marriage. Apples floated in water or hung from a string; single bobbers who got a bite, got a mate.

And finally, Jack. Celts and Scots once carried hollowed out, candle-lit turnips to help frighten those bad spirits. Later, an 18th century Irish folk tale described Stingy Jack, a disreputable miser who saved his soul by tricking the devil — stranding him up a tree on All Hallows Eve, eliciting a promise to leave him alone. However, when Jack died his sinful life also kept him out of heaven. So Jack travels as a spirit in limbo carrying a hot ember, which was thrown by the devil as Jack left the gates of hell, in a hollowed-out turnip to light his way.

You might see Jack’s spirit on All Hallows’ Eve, still carrying his “Jack o’ lantern” through the darkness.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.