Saints, sinners, young ghouls, glittering drummer-boys, daring stilt walkers, brilliant lantern bearers, fireworks and even a burning sun will light up the doorways and balconies of Fatima Mansions flats in Dublin tonight.
For these flats, long associated with deprivation and social exclusion, Hallowe'en will this evening be a time when the most important spirit present will be that of the community.
As Ms R≤is∅n Ryder, community worker with Fatima Groups Unite (FGU), explains, the Vision Of Hope festival will be an opportunity for residents to put a veil over the past and look forward to the future.
Just over a week ago Dublin Corporation's South Area Committee passed the outline plan for the regeneration of Fatima. A Regeneration Board has been established, with local resident representation, under the chairmanship of Mr Finbarr Flood of the Labour Court.
"Regeneration is now really up and running," said last week's local newsletter, Fatima Mansions Regeneration News.
It means big changes are on the way. While the people of Fatima will never forget the past that forged the local community, tonight's Hallowe'en festival is about embracing the future, says Ms Ryder.
Hallowe'en, is after all, about transition from one season, or phase, to another. Yesterday afternoon saw the Macnas theatre group putting some of the local children through their paces, on stilts, in preparation for tonight's jamborees.
While there was a party for residents last night, tonight's events "are for all the people of Rialto and Dolphin's Barn", says Mr John Donohoe, chairman of FGU, "because the regeneration of Fatima will be a regeneration of hope for all the people of this area."
Some 3,000 people are expected to take part, either as participants or spectators.
The parade will set off from the football pitch at Fatima Mansions at 6 p.m. and continue to Dolphin House, where more lantern bearers, majorette, drummers and various vividly attired young people will join to make their way up the South Circular Road.
From there, the route will take them to the roundabout at Dolphin's Barn, back though Rialto Street and down St James Walk, to converge at a 15-foot pyre at a site on the Dry Canal.
"From 7 p.m. on, there will be live music, fire sculptures and exciting finale," promises Mr Donohoe.
Ms Deirdre Reid, a Fatima resident and member of the Regeneration Board, explained the hoardings - which Macnas worked on with residents - draped over the gable ends of some of the blocks of flats.
One showed tormented faces against a backdrop of text: "Fear, Hope, Stigma, Anger". Next to it, another displayed a bright sun image, a phoenix-like bird rising towards the top and its tail feathers flecked with glitter.
"We have to take ownership of the fear and anger, which we lived daily here, as well as our hopes in our future," said Ms Reid.
On another the simple statement "Gone But Not Forgotten" was painted, the name of a song recorded by some local women.
It has two meanings. It remembers those who have died prematurely in Fatima, and is also about Fatima Mansions as it stands tonight. Over the next five years, it will change irrevocably.
Gone But Not Forgotten will be tonight's anthem.
