Douglas Hyde 1899

If we look at literary evidence, we do not find references in to Samhain as the new year at all. If ever there was an opportunity to mention that as a fact, which would be of quite great importance, we would expect to find it in the following extract from the Book of Ballymote, where King Cormac instructs his son Cairbré about 'Saman's Day', but we do not:

From: Literary History of Ireland
from Earliest Times to the Present Day
Douglas Hyde
1899 (1967 reprint): Ernest Benn ltd, London
p. 247
"The Bardic Schools
The Instruction of a Prince

[Cairbré:] "O grandson of Con, O Cormac, what are the duties of a prince at a banqueting-house?"
[Cormac:] "A prince on Saman's (now All Souls) Day should light his lamps, and welcome his guests with clapping of hands, procure comfortable seats, the cupbearers should be respectable and active in the distribution of meat and drink. Let there be moderation of music, short stories, a welcoming countenance, a welcome for the learned, pleasant conversations, and the like, these are the duties of the prince, and the arrangement of the banqueting-house"