HALLOWEEN IS GREAT for the little ones. The costumes, the sweets, the sugar-crash tantrums after the sweets – these are all fine but this holiday is supposed to be about being scared stiff.

It doesn’t just have be about the kids so here are just some of the things you can get up to over the Halloween period to scare the bajesus out of you.

Visit a haunted house

These guys offer night-time tours of the infamous Hellfire Club in Dublin, which incidentally meet outside a pub so there’s the option of having a full night of spirits if you so wish.

Hook Head Lighthouse is the oldest intact operational lighthouse in the world. They’ll be doing four scary tours of the tower from 29 to 31 October.

(Image: Will Bakker/Flickr)

Loftus Halloffers an ‘Adult Only Halloween Experience’ which comes with a warning about strobe lighting so you know it’s going to be good.

And Ross Castle in Kerry has a ghost rider which, to us, is equal parts badass and spine-chilling. This ghost tour will take you there.

Take a stroll around a graveyard

Some of the oldest, and subsequently the most creepy graveyards in the country offer tours including Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

(Image: William Murphy/Flickr)

The Gravedigger tour will take you to Bully’s Acre and the Killarney Ghost Tour also promises gravestones.

Go on a murder mystery weekend

There are a number of companies across the country offering murder mystery options. Some of them are more like dinner theatre, so you get a nice meal while actors put on a show and you try to figure out who dunnit. However, we also have the real deal, where guests can spend an entire weekend at a house like Foxford Lodge in Mayo.

(Image: Foxford Lodge)

Spend a night in gaol

If you want to take in a bit of history and also have the thrill of being locked in a dark cell for a bit, pop along to one of the gaol tours at Kilmainham, Cork or Wicklow.

(Image: seagen/Flickr)

Catch a scary movie at the drive-in

If you live in Cork, Ireland’s only drive-in cinema will be showing Evil Dead and The Conjuring for four nights starting from 30 October.

(Video: MovieJunction/YouTube)

If you live in the rest of the country, we suppose you could just go to a regular old cinema…

Stay in with the curtains closed and watch TV while eating all the sweets you bought for the trick-or-treaters

It’ll be scary how great you’ll feel lying on the couch full of sugar.

(Image: Jordon Cooper/Flickr)

Read: Here’s how to get away with trick-or-treating as an adult>

Read: These kids’ Halloween costumes will make you want to up your game this year>