Within Ireland’s chilly climes, I had always been too squeamish to begin sea dipping any earlier than April. A couple of years ago, I tolerated my first swim on a brutal day in March due to a phenomenon sweeping Ireland – outdoor saunas. I attended the Hotbox© sauna in Rosses Point, a coastal village in County Sligo. Hotbox© is made up of several wooden box-like structures, set up adjacent to a popular sea swimming outdoor tidal pool. The owners have the goal of connecting the pleasure and benefits of the traditional sauna with the elemental beauty of an Irish lake, sea or river.
I entered the cosy sauna on a stormy day and sat luxuriating in the heat, gazing out onto the Irish seascape. The floor-length window in front of me had Knocknarea as the backdrop. This is a large, prominent hill with a cairn on the summit, thought to contain the remains of Maeve, a mythical queen of Connaught. In the foreground, I saw a pair of terns, those swallows of the sea, gyrating and plummeting downwards to their target of fish in the waters. A seal bobbed its head up. When I became too hot, I raced out into the outdoor sea pool and was nearly bowled over by the wind. The water made me gasp, so I scurried out and back into the warm hotbox. Repeat several times. The experience was truly breathtaking. I began it all with a gimpy hip and a cold and left facing the day like a Titan.
There are various health benefits associated with saunas. They mimic exercise as far as the heart is concerned. The barrage of heat and cold dovetails into the benefits of reducing heart disease and stroke. That combination also stimulates the immune system, reducing the risk of catching various infections.
Also, saunas reduce inflammation and pain and boost energy levels. The sensory overload of nature, water and being outdoors boosts the secretion of endorphins, our happy hormones.[1]
Finally, it becomes a social event. Nowadays, it can be disconcerting and rather depressing to sit among a group of people with heads down in a smartphone. The communal sauna is set within that rare phenomenon nowadays, a phone-free zone. There is a commonality of a group sitting in the sauna discussing the various aspects of saunas and subsequent cold dips that lead into other chats of health and well-being.
The Romans called Ireland Hibernia, which meant” Forever Winter”. Ireland’s phlegmatic weather causes aches and pain and has always done so, as evidenced by the ancient sweat houses dotted on today’s landscape. These were ancient saunas set up to soothe arthritic bones and joints. There are many of these structures present in Ireland, most of them in Sligo and County Leitrim. They are small, bee-hive shaped stone structures over a metre in height where a fire was burnt inside for many hours for the sauna effect. The person went in and lay there for several hours. The origin and reason for use of these mysterious structures that sit so aptly among the round-topped drumlins of Leitrim and Sligo is unknown. They have definitely been placed as far back as the 1600s and even as far back as the Vikings. As already mentioned, the damp Irish climate exacerbates the aches and pains of arthritis, especially in later years. Provoking a sweat was thought to eliminate toxins, reduce inflammation and thus dampen these afflictions.
It is a mystery as to why there are so many in North West Ireland. One theory is that a lack of medical care in rural areas such as Leitrim and Sligo meant people sought out natural cures for their ailments.
It is interesting to note that the sweat houses were in use, although less so, right up to the 1940s. The advent of medical care into more rural areas, along with electricity, hot water and bathrooms, is thought to have caused their demise.[2]
The exploration and rediscovery of our immediate environment as a result of the Covid pandemic seems to have reawakened an awareness of nature and our need to be closer to it. The revitalisation of the ancient practice of having an outdoor sauna may have stimulated this innate relationship, suppressed in an anesthetised Western world. In a world now designed to stultify the senses with its outcome of less movement, staying inside more, increased screen use and pandering to comfort, this ritualistic activity wakes you up, gets you sweating and pushes you beyond your comfort zone. Like Queen Maeve in her cairn on Knocknarea’s summit, you feel on top of the world.
[1] Hussain, J. and Cohen, M., 2018. Clinical effects of regular dry sauna bathing: a systematic review. Evidence‐Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2018(1), p.1857413.
[2] The Leitrim Sweathouse Project. https://leitrimcoco.ie/eng/community-culture/heritage/archaelogical-heritage/sweat-house-project/