Sweat Houses - Irish Saunas

Before saunas were a lifestyle brand, Ireland had sweat houses.
Luke traces the forgotten history of the teach allais. Stone sweat huts used in Ireland from at least the early 1600s, centuries before cold plunges and wellness retreats became fashionable. Built into riverbanks and hillsides, sealed shut and fired with turf, these places pushed the body to its absolute limit in the name of cure.

But these Sweat Houses were gnarlier than our boujie sauna exports. Sweating was considered a medicine, and certain instances people were bled, wrapped, sealed inside stone chambers for hours, then plunged into rivers, handed a bottle of whiskey or sent straight to bed.

But the exact extent of the use of Sweat Houses remains a mystery. 1/3 of Sweathouse remains are found in Leitrim and Cavan, and some leitrim locals reference altered states, mushroom-like hallucinations and poitín distilling.

Is sauna culture in 2026 a newfangled export, or a return to natural way of being?