Derry, Northern Ireland — Derry Halloween, which bills itself as Europe’s largest Halloween festival, marks its 40th anniversary from Wednesday, October 28, through Sunday, November 1. The Carnival Parade starts at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 31, with fireworks at about 8:15 p.m., and both are free, as is the three-night Awakening the Walled City Trail.
The festival draws around 120,000 visitors a year and adds about £7.4 million to the local economy, according to Derry City and Strabane District Council, which runs it with support from Tourism Northern Ireland and The Executive Office. The 2026 theme is It’s In Our Bones, and the trail draws on the folklore and stories behind Halloween’s origins in the North West.
Awakening the Walled City Trail, October 28 to 30
The Awakening the Walled City Trail is a free street show of aerial acts, fire performers, music, light installations and costumed characters that runs from 6 to 9 p.m. on October 28, 29 and 30, in and around the city’s 400-year-old walls. The route runs from Guildhall Square along Shipquay Street, the Diamond, Bishop Street and the Cathedral Quarter, and paper trail maps are available at council buildings, Visit Derry and participating hospitality venues.
- Witchy Wonderland: A Disco of the Undead: In Your Space Circus turns the Grand Parade, on the City Walls, into a dreamlike landscape of circus and spectacle with a cast of local performers.
- Descent: Visual Spectrum’s installation on the City Walls at Lower Magazine Street, where “ancient mythology and cutting-edge projection combine to transform the Walls into a portal between worlds,” the festival says.
- Through the Veil: an aerial show with fire and visual effects above the Diamond.
- Walter’s Wake: a New Orleans-style jazz funeral procession on Bishop Street for Walter deBurgh, the city’s skeleton figure, with giant skeletons, musicians, stilt walkers and acrobats.
- Sliantha the Samhain Serpent: the festival’s serpent, back this year and rising through smoke and light at Fahan Embankment.
- Echoes of Our Bones: folklore, music and theater in the Craft Village.
- Walter’s Awakening from the Grave: in the upstairs window of O’Neill’s Sports Store on Waterloo Place, four skeletons climb out of three full-sized coffins and dance each trail night from 6 to 9 p.m. The skeletons are store staff with no background in theater or dance.
City Walls Tickets for the Trail
The City Walls section is the only part of the trail that needs a ticket. The tickets are free and timed, a first for the festival this year, to control how many people are on the Walls at once. They are fully booked, and the festival is releasing 2,500 more online at noon Derry time on each trail day, October 28, 29 and 30.
- Entry times: timed slots from 6 to 8:30 p.m., plus relaxed sessions at 6 p.m. each night for visitors who want a quieter, less crowded visit.
- Where: enter at Bishop Street Car Park and exit at Lower Magazine Street. The route has uneven surfaces and gradients, with walking and standing.
- Who needs one: everyone in the ticketed section, children included. Children under 2 don’t need a ticket.
- On the night: arrive 10 minutes before your slot. Digital tickets are scanned at entry and are good only for the date and time on them.
“Just a reminder that the rest of the Trail is not ticketed and also free so there is plenty of entertainment to enjoy throughout the city centre for anyone who hasn’t booked,” said Aisling McCallion, the council’s festival and events manager.
Carnival Parade and Fireworks on October 31
The Carnival Parade sets off along the Queen’s Quay riverfront at 7 p.m. on Halloween night, Saturday, October 31, and the Inishowen Carnival Initiative is producing it this year. Hundreds of local performers march in costumes “from fire-breathing dragons to ghostly dance troupes, all moving to the beat of vibrant drums,” according to the festival, which tells spectators to “imagine 40,000 people, all cheering along in fancy dress.”
“When you visit you will see that almost everyone dresses up over the nights of Halloween,” the festival’s FAQ says of the crowds, and it suggests a homemade costume over an expensive one. An accessible viewing area for the parade is at Queen’s Quay, opposite the City Hotel, and an accessible viewing platform is in Strand Road Car Park, both first come, first served.
The Fireworks Finale goes up over the River Foyle at about 8:15 p.m. It depends on the weather, and rain can delay it. The council can change, suspend or cancel any performance for weather or safety, and in 2025 it called off one night of the Walled City Trail because of the weather.
Heart of Samhain, Music and Family Events
Heart of Samhain, the festival’s food and music area, fills Guildhall Square, Waterloo Place and Harbour Square with food stalls, live music and street theater. Local acts play the Samhain Stage in the city center and the Cathedral Quarter Stage, among the old churches along the Walls.
- Little Horrors: a family zone at Waterloo Place from October 28 to November 1, with arts and crafts, storytelling and face painting.
- The Guildhall: children’s shows, sensory-friendly sessions and interactive performances under Luke Jerram’s Gaia installation, a view of the Earth from space.
- Outdoors: the Tiny Glow Walk at St Columb’s Park on Friday, October 30, and the Monsters and Munchkins Family Fun Run on Saturday, October 31.
- Quiet space: a quiet and sensory space in the Guildhall from October 28 to 31, open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and a quiet-space cabin at the Monster Halloween Funfair at Ebrington Square.
Strabane Halloween and Haunted Houses Nearby
Strabane, the district’s market town, runs a separate Halloween program in the town center on Saturday, October 31, with trick-or-treat trails, a mini Halloween market, a dinosaur encounter and a Fireworks Extravaganza at 7 p.m., best seen from the Melvin Sports Complex running track. The district’s haunted houses this month include the Strabane Haunted House at St Patrick’s Hall and Fulton’s Pumpkin Patch and Haunted House in Artigarvan, and the Halloween Hay Trail of nine displays across the district runs through October 31.
How Derry Halloween Began
Derry Halloween began in 1986 as a fancy dress event in a pub, the festival says. “What began as a small scale local event in 1986 has now grown into Europe’s largest Halloween festival and one of Ireland’s most famous cultural events,” Councillor Grace Uí Niallais, Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Council, said at the launch of the 40th anniversary program.
The festival’s site traces Halloween to Samhain, the Celtic festival that marked the end of the harvest in Ireland more than 2,000 years ago, when “the veil separating the worlds of the living and the dead was at its thinnest” and people lit bonfires, wore disguises and carved faces into turnips to keep evil spirits away.
A new mural by the local arts collective Peaball, unveiled at the program launch on October 6, marks the 40 years. The festival’s site carries a “Best Halloween Destination” line credited to USA Today and says the TV series Derry Girls “devoted a whole episode” to the festival.
Getting to Derry for Halloween
City of Derry Airport is 15 minutes from the city center, Belfast is about 1.5 to 2 hours away by car, and Dublin is about 3 hours by car or bus, the festival says. Translink and Bus Éireann run services to the city, motorhome parking is at Fort George on all four nights, and the festival advises booking a hotel early because rooms book up fast. The trail, parade and fireworks are outdoors, and the festival warns that Northern Ireland weather in October “tends to be changeable.”
NOTE: Derry Halloween is not connected to the Derry of HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, the fictional town from Stephen King’s IT novel. HBO has renewed that series for a second season, set in 1935.
More Halloween in Europe
- Germany: Europa-Park’s Halloween runs by day through November 1 with 180,000 pumpkins, and its Traumatica horror nights run through November 7.
- The Netherlands: Toverland’s Halloween Days and Halloween Nights run through November 8.
- Spain: PortAventura World’s Halloween runs to November 15, with a new haunted house, El Carnicero de Penitence.
- France: Disneyland Paris’s Disney Halloween Festival runs through November 1.
- England: Thorpe Park’s Fright Nights runs through November 1 with the new Tenement maze, and some UK attractions now earn more from Halloween than from Christmas.
- Ireland: The Nightmare Realm, the Dublin haunted attraction, has announced it is leaving Ireland after 16 years.
The trail, the parade and the fireworks are free, and the full program, the trail map and the daily City Walls ticket releases are on the Derry Halloween site.
Top photo: a giant skeleton lantern at Derry Halloween on October 31, 2017. Photo: Greg Clarke, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
