The Fumbally Theatre, April 5th, 2025,Dublin
This weekend, I attended the Saturday night talks at the Sweathouse Festival held in The Fumbally Theatre, and I left with my mind buzzing and my heart stirred by Ireland’s steamy and storied past.
The evening opened with archaeologist James Eogan, who shared findings from the Rathpatrick excavation site uncovered during bypass construction. What they unearthed was a fascinating Bronze Age sweathouse structure, dating back 3,500 years. The main feature was a circular recess, 5 metres in diameter and about 20 cm deep, outlined by 36 post holes, each bearing remnants of hazel charcoal. To the east, a rectangular recess, elevated but deeper (75 cm), may have been water-filled. To the south, there was clear evidence of fire, along with a notable scattering of split stones, stones heated in fire and used to warm water, reminiscent of fulacht fiadh sites.
Interestingly, an annex to the south of the main circle was also found—another recessed area, about 20 cm deep, situated just outside the hazel post ring. The structure raises many questions, especially when compared with Ireland’s smaller sweathouses: how many post holes do those contain? And what other architectural consistencies might reveal further insights into the evolution of these heat-based spaces?
Next, we heard from Rosanna Cooney, a journalist and researcher whose forthcoming book (due May) delves into the history of sweat houses in Ireland. She told us there are over 300 known stone sweathouses across the country, with more than 100 in County Leitrim alone. Much of her research draws from the 1930s folklore project, when Irish schoolchildren were tasked with collecting oral histories from their grandparents. These stories, now digitised on Dúchas.ie, offer a rich well of information about the medical and social functions of sweathouses. Among the ailments said to be treated were arthritis, headaches, gout, complexion issues, eye problems, and even deafness—a treatment often referred to as The Sweating Cure.
Sweathouses, she said, were very much part of the people’s apothecary.
The process was no small feat: a turf fire was lit inside the stone structure, burning steadily for 5 to 24 hours, bringing the internal temperature up to 130°C. After extinguishing the fire and removing the ashes, rushes were laid on the floor, and the temperature would drop to around 70°C. Once people entered, their body heat would bring it back up to 90°C—a powerful, deeply warming heat.
Interestingly, outside the folklore archives, the only other historical accounts of Irish sweat houses come from visiting outsiders. These records mention the structures, but no spiritual context is noted, perhaps unsurprisingly, as the Irish may not have shared those deeper meanings with strangers.
The tradition seemed to vanish alongside the rise of medical dispensaries in post-Famine Ireland. As institutional medicine spread, this indigenous practice of sweat as medicine and ritual was lost, a powerful cultural tool, now nearly forgotten, within just a few generations.
But maybe we’re remembering, and did we ever really forget, is it just that we stopped talking.
A Finnish speaker closed the evening with beautiful reflections on her country’s rich sauna culture. In Finland, she said, the focus has long been on perfecting the technology—but sauna is a rainbow, and technology is only one colour. It’s time, she said, that we begin exploring the spiritual and social aspects of sauna as well. She spoke of Bear energy—the sensation of entering the winter nest, undergoing a miniature death, and emerging renewed. In a world that prizes productivity and speed, sauna invites slowness, death-and-rebirth, a return to the breath.
As the Finns would say, the sauna is not just to wash the body, but to wash the mind. And in these times, our minds need washing as often as possible.
Together, these accounts bookend the evidence of sweat houses in Irish life, stretching from ancient prehistory to just a century ago. The decline may have been rapid, but the memory lingers—somewhere in our bones, our skin, our psyches. And as the popularity of modern saunas surges, it seems we are not so much discovering something new, but remembering something old. Something essential.
Lingering Questions
The evening left us with more than knowledge—it left us with living questions:
Were sweathouses used for spiritual purposes, beyond the medicinal and social?
Do the entrances or positioning of known sweathouses hold any alignment with cardinal directions, solar patterns, or the Celtic calendar?
In comparing structures what patterns emerge in terms of layout, post hole numbers, or functional zones?
Could the annex areas or adjacent spaces have had ceremonial or practical uses we’ve yet to understand?
And then what happens when we start to look again at culture, sauna medicine, and ritual with fresh eyes, and open hearts?
Maybe we don’t just sweat the past, the present needs healing too.
