Growing up, I knew autumn had arrived before I could have told you why.
It was the particular business of the garden centre in September. The tidying up, the cutting back, the preparing for next year. The beds being cleared. The pots brought in from where they'd spent the summer. And everywhere the weight of fruit from apples to pears and crab apples, pulling branches down in the garden and along the hedgerows at home.
That fruit didn't just sit there. The cooking apples became tarts. The blackberries and gooseberries from the hedgerows became jam. There were jars of it lined up, deep purple and amber, the summer's work sealed in glass for the months ahead. That is what the abundance was for. Not to be noticed but to be used. To be turned into something that would last.
The Irish word for autumn is fómhar. It means harvest. The language doesn't distinguish between the season and what the season does. They are the same word, the same idea. Autumn is the harvest. The harvest is autumn.
I think that's right. And I think it's worth teaching children to notice it, and to make something from it, while it's here.
How autumn arrives in Ireland
Irish autumn doesn't announce itself dramatically. It seeps in. The light changes first. A particular low gold that appears in September that has nothing to do with summer. Then the mornings get their bite. Then one day you notice the rowan berries have turned deep red and the hedgerows are suddenly dense with colour you hadn't seen all summer.
The equinox falls on the 22nd of September. It's the moment when day and night are exactly equal before the dark half of the year begins. From that point the evenings shorten noticeably, sometimes by what feels like minutes between one week and the next. By October the change is unmistakable.
Samhain, the ancient Irish festival on the 31st of October, marks the point at which autumn gives way to winter in the Celtic calendar. Everything between the equinox and Samhain is the true Irish autumn: six rich, strange, dramatic weeks when the natural world moves faster than at any other time of year.
The word fómhar (autumn/harvest) appears in Irish place names across the country. It's a reminder that this season has shaped the language and landscape of Ireland for thousands of years.
What to notice in Irish nature through autumn
September: The beginning
Rowan berries turn deep red in September and the trees become immediately visible in a way they weren't all summer. In Irish folklore, the rowan was one of the most protective trees. its berries placed above doorways, its wood used to make tools that would resist enchantment. September is when that symbolic power is most visually present: the tree burning red against the still-green hedgerow.
Blackberries are at their peak. Elderberries are heavy and dark. Hazelnuts are falling. The hedgerow in September is the most abundant it will be all year. A last, generous offering before the cold.
Fungi begin appearing after the first autumn rains. A walk through woodland or even a damp garden in September can turn up extraordinary things overnight — brackets on tree trunks, rings of mushrooms in the grass, tiny orange cups on fallen wood. The fungi are not appearing from nowhere; they are the visible surface of underground networks that have been growing quietly all year.
October: The turning
October is Ireland's most dramatically beautiful month. The beech trees turn copper, the oaks go bronze, the birches yellow. In a good year, particularly in the midlands and west, the colour can last for several weeks before the first gales strip the leaves.
Fieldfares arrive from Scandinavia in October. Large, handsome thrushes that travel to Ireland to spend the winter. You hear them before you see them, a chattering call overhead as they move in flocks across open ground. They eat berries including hawthorn haws, rosehips, holly berries, and their arrival is one of the clearest signals that the season has genuinely turned.
Robins begin singing again in October to defend their winter territories. It is a different song from the summer one. It's quieter, more melancholy, the sound of a bird claiming its patch of ground before the dark months begin. It is one of the most distinctly autumnal sounds in the Irish countryside.
Hedgehogs are preparing to hibernate. If you have a hedgehog in your garden, they will be eating as much as possible in October before finding a pile of leaves or a sheltered corner to settle in. A small pile of fallen leaves left undisturbed in a quiet corner is a genuine contribution to hedgehog survival.
November: The finishing
By November, most of the colour is gone. The trees are bare or nearly bare. The hedgerows are stripped back to reveal their structure from the tangle of branches, the old birds' nests that were hidden all summer, the shape of things underneath.
But November is not empty. Kale and Brussels sprouts are at their best after the first hard frosts they become sweeter, more tender, the cold having broken down the starches in the leaf. Parsnips and root vegetables are ready and improved. The sea and the sky and the stripped landscape have a clarity that summer never offers.
And winter birds have settled in. Redwings join the fieldfares. Long-tailed tits move through gardens in chattering flocks. The dawn chorus is smaller but still there.
The folklore of Irish autumn
The six weeks between the autumn equinox and Samhain carry more folklore weight in Ireland than almost any other time of year. The veil between this world and the otherworld was believed to thin as October progressed. /the fairy mounds opening more readily, the dead more able to return, the boundaries between ordinary life and something else more permeable.
This wasn't superstition so much as a seasonal philosophy. The natural world is genuinely more dramatic in autumn. The fungi appearing overnight, the light shifting daily, the hedgerows transforming week by week. The people who developed Irish folklore were paying extraordinary attention to exactly these changes. The stories they told about this time of year were their way of naming what they noticed.
The rowan tree was specifically protective at Samhain. Its red berries were believed to ward off harmful spirits. Lone hawthorn trees in fields were thought to be particularly active gathering places for the fairy folk as October progressed.
You can read more about the Irish story behind this time of year in our post on what Samhain really is... the ancient festival that gave the world Halloween.
Things to do with children through the Irish autumn
Autumn offers more opportunities for genuine nature engagement than any other Irish season. Here are the ones most worth making time for.
Go on a fungi hunt
September and October are peak fungi months in Ireland. Walk somewhere damp and shaded such as a park, a woodland edge, even a garden after rain and look slowly. On tree trunks, on fallen logs, pushing through leaf litter, growing in circles in the grass. Take a photograph rather than picking anything. Wild fungi should never be eaten without expert identification. The looking is the thing.
Children find fungi extraordinary once they know to look for them. The shapes, the colours, the fact that they appear overnight. A bracket fungus growing on a tree trunk can be twenty years old. A ring of mushrooms in the grass is the surface of something huge happening underground.
Find a rowan tree and collect its berries
Rowan trees are common across Ireland in hedgerows, gardens and woodland edges. In September and October they carry clusters of deep red berries. Collect a small handful and they can be made into jelly with crab apples, or simply pressed between sheets of paper to preserve the colour. Tell children what the tree was believed to protect against. Then let them decide what they think.
Press autumn leaves
October is the window. Collect leaves at peak colour from beech, oak, hazel, rowan to cherry, and press them between sheets of newspaper under heavy books. After two weeks they will have dried to a papery version of themselves that holds the colour for months. Children can make bookmarks, cards, collages. The leaves you press together in October become December gifts.
Keep a weekly autumn nature journal
The rate of change in Irish autumn is remarkable week by week. A notebook started in September and kept through to November captures something genuinely worth having. A record of how fast and how completely the natural world transforms in this country at this time of year. Draw or write or stick things in. Date each entry. Look back at September from November and see what has changed.
Explain why leaves change colour, and why it matters
This is one of the questions children ask in autumn and one of the most satisfying to answer. The explanation is counterintuitive and genuinely beautiful.
Leaves are green because of chlorophyll, the pigment that captures sunlight and drives photosynthesis. But the yellow and orange colours of autumn were there all along, hidden beneath the green. As the days shorten, the tree begins to withdraw chlorophyll from its leaves, pulling the valuable pigment back into the branches before the leaf drops. As the green fades, the yellows and oranges are revealed.
The reds and purples are different, they are actively produced by some trees as they withdraw sugars from the leaves. The more sunlight and the cooler the nights, the more intense the red. A cold, bright October produces better colour than a mild grey one.
The tree is not dying. It is doing something precise and purposeful, recovering what it can before letting go of the leaf entirely. The falling leaf is not a failure. It is the end of a deliberate process.
Children who understand this look at autumn leaves differently. They are looking at a tree making decisions.
Find a conker and explain what it is
Conkers fall from horse chestnut trees in September and October and children are reliably fascinated by them. The spiky green case, the moment of opening it, the perfect glossy brown seed inside with its pale patch like a thumb print.
The question children ask is always the same: what is it for?
It is a seed. Everything about the horse chestnut's elaborate production, from the spiky case, the glossy coat, the generous size, it's is in service of that one purpose. The case protects the seed until it is ready. The glossy surface lets it slip easily from the case and roll away from the parent tree. The size gives the seedling enough stored energy to grow its first roots and leaves without needing sunlight immediately.
A conker planted in autumn will germinate in spring. A child who plants one in a pot of compost and leaves it outside over winter will often be surprised to find a small horse chestnut seedling pushing through in March or April. A straight stem and two distinctive leaves from the single conker they put in the ground.
Before planting, make something. Conker painting is one of October's most satisfying activities. Roll conkers through shallow trays of paint and across paper, letting their weight and their irregular surfaces create patterns. For Halloween, thread conkers on string with leaves and twisted wire to make spider webs that dry beautifully and hold their shape.
The spiky case of a horse chestnut is worth examining closely before the conker is removed. The spikes are soft when the case is young and green, hardening as the conker inside matures. The white interior of the case is one of the most quietly extraordinary things in the autumn natural world. Children who look carefully at it tend to go quiet.
Make something from the hedgerow
Blackberries, gooseberries and cooking apples are all abundant in Irish hedgerows and gardens in autumn. Making something from what you have gathered connects children to the oldest use of the autumn harvest, not consuming it immediately but transforming it into something that lasts.
Blackberry jam requires only blackberries, sugar and time. Apple tart with cooking apples from the garden or a neighbour's tree tastes entirely different from a tart made with shop apples. Even a simple bowl of blackberries with cream, gathered that afternoon, is an act of harvest.
Children who make something from what they have collected, who see the fruit become the jam, the apple become the tart, understand something about abundance that children who only consume it do not.
Listen for fieldfares
From mid-October onwards, listen when you are outside for the chattering call of fieldfares overhead. They move in flocks, often mixed with starlings or other thrushes. Once you have heard the sound and know what it is, you will hear it every autumn for the rest of your life. A bird flying thousands of kilometres to spend the winter in Irish fields. Children who learn to recognise this sound gain something they carry permanently.
Go for a Samhain walk
In the last week of October, go for a walk specifically to notice autumn ending. Take children and ask them to find five things that will be gone by December. A leaf still on a tree. A berry on a branch. A fungi still standing. A bird they haven't seen before. Something that feels like it is finishing.
This is what Samhain was, at its heart. A community going outside to notice together that the year was turning. You can do it in any park or field or garden in Ireland without any preparation at all.
Celebrate the Irish seasons every month
The Little Sprouts Garden Box follows the Celtic seasonal calendar all year. Organic seeds chosen for the Irish season, an Irish folklore story, a craft and a recipe, delivered every month. The autumn boxes are rooted in this turning of the year. No garden needed. Ships across Ireland and Europe.
Frequently asked questions
What is autumn like in Ireland?
Irish autumn arrives gradually from September and intensifies through October before settling into November. The season brings dramatic leaf colour, its peak usually mid-October where you can see an abundance of hedgerow berries and fruit, the first fungi of the year appearing after autumn rains, and the arrival of winter birds from Scandinavia. The autumn equinox falls on the 22nd of September and Samhain on the 31st of October, marking the traditional beginning of winter in the Celtic calendar.
What wildlife can you see in Ireland in autumn?
Fieldfares and redwings arrive from Scandinavia in October and can be seen in open fields and hedgerows eating berries. Robins begin singing again to defend winter territories. Hedgehogs are active in October, feeding heavily before hibernation. Fungi appear prolifically in September and October after rain. Grey squirrels and red squirrels cache nuts for winter. Deer are in rut during October. Migrating birds gather in large flocks before or after passage through Ireland.
What berries are in Irish hedgerows in autumn?
Irish hedgerows in autumn carry a remarkable range of berries. Blackberries are at their peak in September. Hawthorn berries (haws) and rowan berries turn deep red in September and October. Rosehips orange the hedgerows from October. Sloes, small dark berries on blackthorn, ripen in October. Elderberries are ready in September. Holly berries appear in November. Most hedgerow berries should not be eaten without proper identification, they are valuable as wildlife food and for observation but some are toxic to humans.
What is the Irish word for autumn?
The Irish word for autumn is fómhar, which also means harvest. The word reflects the central importance of the harvest season in the Irish agricultural calendar, the season and what it produces are the same word, the same idea. Fómhar appears in Irish place names across the country. The autumn months in Irish are Meán Fómhair (September, meaning middle of harvest), Deireadh Fómhair (October, meaning end of harvest) and Samhain (November, the name of the ancient Celtic festival).
How is autumn connected to Irish folklore?
Autumn is the most folklore-rich season in the Irish year. The approach of Samhain, the 31st of October, was believed to thin the veil between the living world and the otherworld, with the fairy mounds opening and the dead able to return. The rowan tree was specifically protective at this time of year, its red berries believed to ward off harmful spirits. Lone hawthorn trees were thought to be active gathering places for the fairy folk as October progressed. The entire period between the autumn equinox and Samhain carried a quality of otherness in Irish tradition, a recognition that the natural world was changing faster than at any other time of year.
What are conkers and why do they fascinate children?
Conkers are the seeds of the horse chestnut tree, produced in spiky green cases that fall in September and October. The cases split on impact to reveal the glossy brown seed inside. Children are drawn to them because they are beautiful, tactile and mysterious, the smooth, heavy weight of them is deeply satisfying to hold. Conkers can be rolled through paint and across paper for autumn art, strung on thread with leaves for Halloween decorations, or planted in compost in autumn to grow a new horse chestnut seedling in spring.
