Samhain/Halloween/Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night Suggestions Please

Paisley is exactly the sort of thing I think Rick would suggest- Europe through the back door and travelling like a local- a local family event open to anyone. Paisley (normally) is one of those places just outside Glasgow which most tourists ignore, and in spite of it's real history.
But there is a bit of background to these happenings in the 1697 Paisley Witch Trials- when 7 women were hung and then burned to death. The actual story and its background is quite terrible (as were all the witch trials), but none the less it is Scottish History.

Samhain and Guy Fawkes night are two separate events, quite different in their origins, if now rather inter twined.

Bonfire Night is celebrated everywhere in the UK. Just over the border (an hour by train from Glasgow or Edinburgh) Carlisle has what is called a Fireshow (the official Bonfire Night for the whole County of Cumberland)- so a lot closer than York. Another local family event where the visitor is the exception rather than the rule- https://www.discovercarlisle.co.uk/events/carlisle-fireshow/

If you want to stay in the south, there is Lewes in Sussex.
https://www.lewesbonfirecelebrations.com/

A big feature is the various clubs who run small floats alight with pitch through the streets!

York is particularly disappointing on bonfire night. The shade of Guido would approve of the lack of celebration for his own demise! There are some firework events, but these nowadays tend to be at the weekends either side of the 5th (unless that is a Fri/Sat of course).

Thank you for your response! Glad to hear Paisley's festival would be less touristy than I feared. I was worried it sounded a bit too American/commercial- but the pictures look great! Yes, the history of the witch trials is tragic. I was heartened to learn of the Witches of Scotland tartan memorializing victims of the Scottish Witchcraft Act. We, too, have a grisly history of witch trials in the 1690s- 200+ accused, 30 convicted, 19 executed, and all finally exonerated 330 years later. The Salem Witch Museum in Massachusetts is fascinating and a sad lesson in tolerance for us all.
On a happier note, thank you for the tip on discovering the fun in Carlisle. The link looks informative and useful! We will check into this.
-Cheers!

Lin C-
Now, that looks amazing! I love the website, so full of details! Hmmmm.... we may have to rethink our plans to head to Scotland for the 31st, just to turn around so quickly and be back south in time to "Remember, remember the 5th of November!"
Do you have any suggestions for Oct 31st celebrations, be they Halloween or Samhain, in the south?
You've given me food for thought!
Thanks!

I'm very confused by the phrase "inspired by the Guy Fawkes Inn"? Do you mean that you are inspired by it or that you think the tradition is? The pub itself has this on th website "Did you know that as a former property owned by Guy Fawkes and his family we are prohibited from celebrating Bonfire night?" I'm not sure where that rule came from, and I doubt it could ever be enforced today so it sounds like a piece tourist touting for the other 364 day of the year.

The bottom line is that 5th November is tradtionally a celebration of the stopping of a terorrist attack on the English parliament years before the UK existed (but the forerunner of MI5 did!!). Over the last 30 years there has been an increading trend to use it as an excuse for money making by businesses or violence against police and fire fighters by city hooligans. Big events get shifted to a weekend not the actual day (because more money can be made) and in some places it gets merged in with Halloween, which never used to be a thing in England.

The Lewes event makes an attempt, but it is now too famous and too busy - to the point that the trains company closes the railway station at noon to prevent dangerous overcrowding and the trains run through without stopping until next day.

Rico-
That's interesting. November 5th lands on a Thursday this year, so Mr. Fawkes should be sufficiently bored, I suppose. I would have thought that each year it would be an opportunity for a bit more revelry. Perhaps Guido wins in the end? Think I'll still visit York, but maybe on another day.
Thanks for the tip!

Me.Crewe-
Sorry, I was trying to keep my post short, and I failed to elaborate. What I meant to say was that my thoughts of going to York on Nov. 5th were inspired by stumbling upon the Guy Fawkes Inn online. When we realized our stay in the UK would coincide with Oct. 31, Nov. 5th, and Nov. 11, we wanted to make the most of those dates and seek out unique places to learn about how the traditions of Samhain, Guy Fawkes/Bonfire Night, and Remembrance Day are observed- or not. Sometimes we have false impressions or are given generalizations about those sorts of things, and I would like to know more. We aren't really interested in Halloween, but would rather learn about its roots in Samhain. We also wanted to find out more about how people observe The Fifth of November, not a false, Hollywood version, mixed with fiction. But just as you pointed out, commercialism and social angst seem to encroach on celebrations more and more.

While Halloween is now very commercialised I don’t think the 5th of November is that much.
There are definitely more organised displays but I think that has been encouraged for safety reasons as much as anything. While lots of people set off fireworks in their back gardens or local fields it’s not the most sensible thing to do! Thinking of the time my friend accidentally destroyed their shed with an errant Catherine wheel and the bonfire in my friend’s village that collapsed with burning cable drums rolling towards the crowd! Great excitement!

Yes there probably will be a ticket price for organised displays but often that goes to charity or to fund projects in the local area. And they will be held on the nearest Friday or Saturday to the day so more people can attend.

In areas with an Asian community there will also be fireworks going off on other days around the 5th because of Diwali.

There have always been incidents of d*ckheads throwing fireworks at each other and potentially the police but it is not that common and is very unlikely to happen anywhere tourists are likely to go.

OP, you may be overestimating the cultural significance of these dates.

England never really had a Halloween tradition until American practices were imported in the late 20th century. It has been much more widely celebrated in terms of guising (trick or treating) in Scotland for longer. It was generally just for kids when I was young (in the 70's and 80's, in Scotland). The links to any pagan festival are fairly tenuous, even in Scotland. The vast majority of people will have no idea what Samhain is.

Still, Paisley's Halloween Festival sounds like a bit of fun. Paisley's definitely worth visiting. It's an interesting town with a lot of history that very few tourists go to. I think you should have your Halloween costume packed in your suitcase if you want to get properly into the spirit of it.

Emma's right that Bonfire Night has largely moved away from people setting off fireworks in their back garden to these large organised displays. Still worth tracking one down. It may be semantics, but generally people don't "observe" Guy Fawkes like a religious holiday. They just go and look at things exploding or stand round a big fire. I think most people know about the gunpowder plot, but it's really not much deeper than watching things go bang. There's no real significance in terms of a political statement or such that you're missing.

11 November is one of those interesting questions.

11 November itself is Armistice Day, but Remembrance Sunday when the main commemorations happen is the Sunday closest to 11 November, not the day itself. Now poppies are sold for weeks beforehand, straight after WW1 that was a one or at best two day thing.

To me it is all about the local commemorations- the individual men who died, as opposed to the pomp and ceremony at the Cenotaph in London or the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall- as important as they are.

I'll cite my own town- we have the main morning ceremony at the Town Cenotaph in the morning of Remembrance Day which hundreds attend. However we have no names to read out, because the decision was made after WW1 (and again after WW2) to write them in a book, and bury the book (s) below the Cenotaph. Worse we know that of over 900 men the town lost between the two wars around 200 were omitted from those books for all kinds of reasons.
We lack the funds to rectify that, and frankly can't agree on who qualifies anyway (a long and unedifying story).
However I live in a former village (now a suburb of the town), in the afternoon a group of around 12 of us gather for a starkly simple ceremony for the subset of the names in the village at our own memorial. On Armistice Day itself I have two intimate ceremonies to attend in the village- one for a new plaque erected about 2 years ago for 2 men omitted in error from the village memorial (a small group of us gather), the second at an almost forgotten memorial a few hundred yards away to the men of the Village Liberal Club- at which I am the only person present.
That memorial is in a poor state, with no legal owner (so unable to do anything with it) but as long as I am fit and able (and it survives) I'm not going to let that commemoration finally end.
Such examples exist up and down the land.
If you are in Keswick or Conwy for example I can show you similar examples of contrasting forms of memorialisation, and forgotten memorials.

As Lin referenced, the biggest and most famous Bonfire Night celebration takes place each year in Lewes. But if you want to attend that you need to start planning now, as it's very popular and accommodation etc gets booked up. I think they are even taking steps to try to limit how many people go if I remember correctly.

Regarding Halloween, the biggest celebration in the UK is actually in Derry- in fact it's the biggest in Europe: https://derryhalloween.com/
It doesn't seem like NI is on your itinerary but adding this here in case helpful to others. Halloween went from something no one really celebrated at all about 20 years ago to now being a lot more common.

it's interesting that Remembance has been added to this topic because that has also been heavily commercialised - just not as obviously. The date of the Armistice is 11th November - but business didn't like letting staff disappear for an hour because it affected productivity so it became established a long time ago that the big ceremonies would take place on the nearest Sunday. In my memory the smaller service on 11th has only resumed since the returning casualties of the Iraq and Afghan wars became a thing on TV news and made people think.

And this year the nearest Sunday follows the nearest Saturday to the 5th (for the bonfires), and is also on Diwali - I dread to think what some "entrepreneur" will make of that combination.

If you do want to visit a main Remembrance Sunday event bear in mind that the ceremony usually builds up to the 11:00 silence which is near the end, so be there around 10:00.

Emma-
Ha! There are great parallels here in the U.S. The purists here still celebrate our Independence Day strictly on the Fourth of July, there are some blurred lines on the calendar with a few firework displays on the 3rd or 5th. Most people enjoy some minor firecrackers and sparklers in the suburbs, while folks in the country go a bit wild where the law can't quite keep on top of it. Your 5th of Nov. brushes with danger sound very much like many Fourth of July incidents I've survived. When I was a kid, the house across the street caught on fire from a stray bottle rocket. More recently, my father-in-law set his lawn on fire. I'm always terrified one of my kids will blow off a finger! Idiocy resulting from a mix of overzealous patriotism, too much alcohol, and a touch of unregulated fireworks knows no national boundaries. Great excitement abounds on both sides of the Atlantic.
Thanks for sharing your insight!

GerryM-
You may be right! I'm so glad there is a forum like this for me to learn. I suspect it's just another way the U.S. is like the U.K.- there are many different takes on the same events. While it may seem to be a contradiction, traditions do tend to evolve to the delight and dismay of us all.
Here too, Halloween has mushroomed into a big industry from neighborhood kids going door to door when I was growing up in the 70's and 80's. Back then, it was low-key, homespun, and poo-pooed by the religious. Now, year-round stores sell cosplay, soft porn, sexy nurse outfits, and gruesome slasher movie props alongside 20 ft animatronic scarecrows. Suburban houses are decked out with movie-quality lights, sounds, and decorations, all store-bought. I blame Marth Stewart, but I digress.
I appreciate hearing your take on what to expect. I do want to visit Paisley, and thanks to my curiosity and folks like you sharing, that destination would not have been on my radar. It sounds charming.
Thanks again for sharing your views.

Cat VH-
Both Bonfire Night in Lewes and Halloween in Derry sound amazing, fun, but maybe a bit too raucous for my trip. It seems like sometimes a good idea grows and grows until it can be a bit crowded, stressful, and overwhelming, like the Edinburgh Fringe Festival or Glastonbury Festival. While I can appreciate the excitement and the talent, I'm not a fan of long queues, no bathrooms, and shoulder-to-shoulder beer-guzzling crowds. There's plenty of that in the States! When I was younger, I wouldn't have blinked an eye at any of that in exchange for the fun, but now, I'm "of a certain vintage," as they say.
I do appreciate the information, and I know which way to direct my younger friends, thanks to your help.

isn31c and me.crewe,
Yes, I had thought that whichever town we were in on Nov. 11th (most likely Liverpool), I'd find a military museum or monument to visit. I am from a military family (and coincidentally live near the only official WWI museum in the US), and thought it would be appropriate to pay respects in some way. At some point while in London, I am considering the IWM and/or the Field of Remembrance at Westminster. While I know it's not specific to WWI, maybe visiting the Guards Museum or the Churchill War Rooms (I went there many years ago and was quite impressed).

I think me.crewe answered this, but I am wondering if shops or restaurants will be closed for the occasion. Here in the U.S., many businesses close or have limited hours of operation for the day. Most shops do the opposite, giving discounts to military members, ramping up sales on a day when people are off work to drink beer and grill hamburgers in the backyard.

I applaud isn31c for your dedication to the memorials in your town! That is very commendable. Thank you both for your input!