Ah Halloween, a time when kids get super high on sugar while face-paint rubs off their faces on to all the good furniture.
For years they've been shouting, 'Trick or Treat' (which is actually an American phrase) at households across the country while holding out gigantic bags filled to the brim with fun size bars, the occasional orange and if you were really lucky, a few quid.
But before kids said Trick or Treat what was shouted when children went door-to-door on the hunt for Halloween treats years ago?
According to our very own Joe Donnelly, who is filing in for Dermot & Dave all this week, in Kildare 'Penny for the Púca' was the phrase used to solicit sweets from the neighbours.
Kate from Roscrea Co, Tipperary said, 'We always said 'a penny for the pookie' at halloween and we'd get money, monkey nuts & sweets but if we got fruit or nuts we weren't impressed.
Then there's this gem: Any apples or nuts we don't want the butts, any apples any apples any apples or nuts! (in the tune of happy birthday)
In some areas the kids used to learn off a poem or song and launch into it as soon as the door opened. Then 'everyone in the estate used do the same. And the adults had to feign interest in all of the performances.'
That sounds like a special type of torture.
In Sligo in the 80s they used to sing a song for Halloween: “Christmas is coming, The goose is getting fat, Please put a penny in the old man’s hat, If you haven’t got a penny, A ha’penny will do, If you haven’t got a ha’penny, God bless you.”
While in Bray they used to say any apples or nuts or a kick in the guts, then they'd do a dance.
(Presumably the dance was to offset the threat of a kick in the nuts.)
While 'Penny For The Boogie' and 'Any Coppers' also did the rounds.
We've come a long way, American or not a simple Trick or Treat gets the job done.
