1 November 190BCE
A significant festival in Celtic historical period, Samhain (sow-een or sow'-inn) involved a great gathering of tribes on Tara Hill, which 'was the island's political and spiritual capital' from Celtic times to 1169. Tara Hill has ancient monuments, tombs and passages some of which are thought to date back to 3,500BCE (source: wikipedia). The Samhain festival marked the beginning of the dark half of the year, the exact opposite day of Beltrane. The last harvest is celebrated along with the cycle of life, and spirits passed. This festival has become Halloween.

The festival was a preparation to survive the winter, where confronting the possibility of death was paramount. Ceremonies involve fire, lights, setting out food and gifts for passing spirits. All fires are extinguished and relit from the sacred bonfire. The veil between the world (Shield of Skathach) is thin, allowing spirits to cross over. As such the living and the dead are united. This day was celebrated as Celtic New Year's Eve.
Source: http://www.packrat-pro.com/celts/celtholidays.htm

While 1 November is a speculative date, the exact date in that year would have been probably decided by the alignment of the sun with markers at the site. Traditional dates range from 31 October to 1 November, with the actual astrological date in 2008 being 6 November.

Celtic culture was found throughout Europe with the La Tene period exemplifying a period of Celtic design and manufacture. For the La Tène period, historian Paul Jacobsthal devised four main groups under which Celtic art could be classified: the Early Style, the Waldalgesheim Style, the Plastic Style, and the Sword Style (source: http://www.thecelticplace.net/celtic-art.htm). The year 190BCE is cited by several sources as being the point at which the La Tene culture (as exemplified by Sword Style which is dated to 190BCE) is thought to have been present in Ireland. Significantly, expressions of Celtic culture persist to contemporary times, representing an extraordinary lineage in the European region particualrly in Ireland.

This lineage also reveals a truth of all cultures: that at certain points along any cultural line into the past, there are significant intersections with other cultures - La Tene Celtic culture is named after the site of the same name in Switzerland and developed in eastern France, Switzerland, Austria, southwest Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.

So while Celtic Ireland is particularly Irish in flavour, it also has roots in Europe. The triple spiral is also not confined to a period around 190BCE, but is found in diverse cultures up to 6,500 years ago and in Irish culture in particular at Newgrange (Irish: Sí an Bhrú) which dates to between c. 3300 and 2900 BCE.

The above visualisation is not strictly derivative of traditional Celtic triple spirals but is rather a daughter or son of them, replicating the way that this project intersects but does not recreate former cultures or times. This project is above all a hybridisation of culture with involves cultural influences transitioning both back and forward across intercultural divides. Viewers are free to take the image and use it for whatever purpose they may wish. What belongs to no one can belong to all. Contact the artist for high resolution versions.

What is perhaps telling and relevant to current Irish times is the relationship between the living and dead that pervades contemporary Ireland. The dead are not simply expired personages, but living entities sharing a common place. This realisation is shared with Polynesian cultures, where the dead are introduced as part of formal ceremony.