Carving Pumpkins, a Very Old Tradition; Custom of the Jack-O'- Lantern From the Irish

Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque) › October 18, 2004

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Summary

NEW MARKET, Va. - Credit the Irish with putting a colorful face on Halloween.

Carving jack-o'-lanterns is a Halloween custom brought to this country by Irish immigrants arriving to escape "the Hunger," or the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s.

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Extract

Carving Pumpkins, a Very Old Tradition; Custom of the Jack-O'- Lantern From the Irish

"A legend grew up about a man named Jack, who was so stingy he was not allowed into heaven when he died," a U.S. State Department publication says. "He couldn't enter hell, either, because he had played jokes on the devil. ...

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