"I Create As I  Speak"

Autumn on Fire

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“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, close bosom-friend of the maturing sun, conspiring with him how to load and bless with fruits the vines that round the thatch-eves run.”

No-one can really describe autumn better than English Romantic poet, John Keats. He composed ‘To Autumn’ most appropriately on September 19th in 1819.

I love this special time of year!

In the northern hemisphere, the first day of autumn is the day of the year when the Sun crosses the celestial equator, moving southward on September 22nd. This day is known as the Autumnal Equinox.

It truly is one of the most spectacular seasons; an intense and pervasive glow of orange and ruby reds, in the sky, in the trees and in the falling leaves. Its burst of colour, a swan song to the exiting summer before the winter and dark nights close in.

With everything back to business, kids at school and the party season almost upon us, I have tried to capture some of autumn’s ‘rosy hue’ in my latest photo shoot to update and refresh the Carlin Creative website. I really hope you like it!

The ‘Fall’ is something the Americans and Canadians do exceptionally well.

Every October, carved pumpkins peer out from porches and doorsteps. These gourd like orange fruits inscribed with ghoulish faces and illuminated by candles are a sure sign of Halloween season and it is a trend that is catching on across the globe.

 But did you know, decorating pumpkins, otherwise known as Jack O’ Lanterns originates in an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack where large turnips and potatoes served as an early canvas for carving before immigrants brought the practice to the United States?

Legend has it, ‘Stingy Jack,’ invited the Devil to have a drink with him. True to his name, Stingy Jack didn’t want to pay so he convinced the Devil to turn himself into a coin so that Jack could use it to buy the drinks.

(Good man yourself Jack!)

Once the Devil did so, Jack decided to keep the money and put it in his pocket next to a silver cross which prevented the Devil from changing back into his original form. Jack eventually freed the Devil under the condition that he would not bother him for one year and that should Jack die, he would not claim his soul.

The next year, Jack again tricked the Devil into climbing a tree to pick a piece of fruit. While he was up in the tree, Jack carved a sign of the cross into the tree’s bark so that the Devil could not come down until he had promised Jack not to bother him for many years.

(Fool me once Jack, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!)

Soon after, Jack died. As the legend goes, God would not allow such an unsavoury figure into Heaven. The Devil, upset by the trick Jack played on him and keeping to his promise not to claim Jack’s soul, would not allow Jack into hell.

Instead, he sent Jack off into the dark night with only a burning coal to light his way. Jack put the coal into a carved turnip and has been roaming the earth with it ever since.

So it was the Irish that began to refer to this ghostly figure as ‘Jack of the Lantern’ and then simply ‘Jack O’Lantern.’

It was the Irish who began to make lanterns by carving scary faces into turnips or potatoes and placing them into windows or near doors on All Hallow’s Eve to frighten away Stingy Jack and other wandering evil spirits.

Immigrants brought the tradition with them to the United States where they soon found pumpkins; a fruit native to America that made for the perfect ‘Jack O’Lanterns.’

It now appears we have outdone the United States in the size and scale of our own Halloween festivities. Everything has come full circle. The celebrations are now bigger than ever before with Derry City throwing the deadliest of welcome parties and like no other, as supernatural beings and the souls of the dead flood into Foyle.

The ‘Out of this World in the City of Bones! Banks of the Foyle Halloween Festival’ was recently voted by USA Today as ‘Welcome to Your Best Halloween Destination in the World;” where visitors are invited to take part in the biggest carnival event with a jammed packed programme of events for all ages happening around Derry, Londonderry and Strabane.

Let’s face it. In Ireland, north and south, we are experts when it comes to partying like its 1999!

A few years back, in 2013, Ireland welcomed in the world. Friends, loved ones and connections were invited home to celebrate over 5,000 ‘Gatherings’ held in their honour. Each gathering had its own individual story of friendship and kinship, of long-lost family connecting, rekindling a sense of community and coming together to celebrate and welcome home those now living overseas.

It was a stroke of state sponsored marketing genius that soon turned into a national movement where our unique Irish pride and passion was poured into a year of ‘Gatherings’ that showed just what we are made off – world leading party people who love the craic and who, just as in the case of ‘Stingy Jack,’ never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

It’s in the same spirit of hospitality, generosity and warmth of welcome, I have established Carlin Creative ‘Time to Shine’ Events and Communications. It’s not another PR agency but a boutique, highly specialised offer for private and corporate clients who want to inform, educate and entertain their special guests and stakeholders in an exceptional way.

Everything, as you can see in the pictures above, is in the attention to detail.

We have a big heart and a big ambition and love what we do. We pride ourselves in running awesome events that make an impact upon people’s lives. It doesn’t matter if it’s a house party, special occasion or big business launch, we want to do things differently, go the extra mile and beyond expectation to transform your celebration into something so special it will be talked about now and years down the line.

And we have the media relations and social media skills to make you headline news.

Carlin Creative is here to help you mark life’s milestones, have a great time, live with no regrets and enable you to take all the credit. VIP memories are made from these socially infectious occasions. From fine cuisine to stunning décor, warm hospitality and clever touches, we layer each celebration with extraordinary precision to make your event the talk of the town.

We specialise in the production of intimate parties, special events and full service event planning. So why not set this autumn on fire by seizing the day and celebrating someone really special? Don’t put off until tomorrow, ‘a gathering’ that can be done today. Time flies likes an arrow.

“September has come, it is hers, whose vitality leaps in the autumn, whose nature prefers trees without leaves and a fire in the fire place.”

Warm words to close from Louis MacNeice’s Autumn Journal and to wish you the very best during this third season of the year.

This is when our eyes will rise from the damp concrete paths to the beauty above, watching each leaf as it makes its final dance to earth, before the trees stand naked, stripped of their gold and scarlet and just before the welcome mat for winter is laid out before us.

Carpe Diem.

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