SWEAT HOUSE – The new & The Ancient Irish Sauna Tradition
By Rosanna Cooney
Published by Irelandia Press
‘Around Ireland Saunas have become new hubs of community as thousands of people are being drawn to the powerful forces of fire, water, steam and sweat.’
Rosanna Cooney was feeling overwhelmed and stressed out when she decided to go to a traditional sweat lodge ceremony in County Wicklow. Her positive experience led her on a quest which resulted in this book. The history of sauna in Ireland is told and she has interesting facts gleaned from personally exploring the Irish countryside and about the span of history of Sauna in Ireland which goes back 3000 years to the Bronze Age. Our connection to the healing powers of sweating is a connection to the past that was almost broken before its recent renaissance. The book includes amazing pictures of still surviving almost subterranean, grass covered, stone igloos from Ireland’s history which were a kind of sauna. Fuelled by turf and built near a water source these early saunas were used for cleansing, ritual as well as medicinal purposes.
Sauna has always been a central part of Naturist culture, a life affirming shared ritual, instinctively we know that it is healthy and good for us. Most people assume that sauna is a foreign import from Scandinavia but in another world first for Cork, after using steam to help his patients, Cork born GP, Dr Richard Barter was the first person to build a ‘Turkish bath’ outside the Ottoman Empire in 1856 near Blarney. Remarkably before the turn of the century, Dublin had five Turkish baths especially for horses.
Cooney travels to the spiritual heartland of Sauna, Finland and is introduced to the concept of ‘Löyly’ a Finnish word that is difficult to describe. It is the steam and spirit of the sauna, a kind of sauna nirvana, like trying to explain ‘craic’ to a Finn… you know ‘Löyly’ when you experience it. She also travels to Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Denmark and Sweden to experience different sauna traditions, including ancient wood fired ‘smoke’ rather than steam saunas.
The medical evidence for the beneficial powers of sauna are explored in detail and are shown to be scientifically proven, the curative powers of hot and cold extremes result in physical as well as mental health benefits. The result is an enhanced psychological wellbeing, real sense of community, belonging, not a phony online ‘community’ but real human social connection.
Today sauna culture in Ireland is vibrant, authentic and growing. At the end of the book is a very useful county by county guide to saunas, many of them mobile and regularly in very special locations where the cold plunge can be in a river, lake or seashore. On her sauna journey Cooney has gone from newbie to expert, It is at times her deeply personal story and well worth reading.
