Irish sweathouse

They were first recorded in 1796 by French writer Chevalier de Latocnaye, who observed local people using them as a cure for sore eyes and other ailments.

[5] They are frequently situated beside streams, rivers and lakes, because it was custom for people to immerse themselves in cold water after bathing in the sweathouse.

Some scholars believe that Roman missionaries brought the idea of 'hot air baths' to Ireland when Christianity was introduced to the island in the Early medieval period.

Others have suggested that the Vikings, who raided Irish coastal settlements in the 8th and 9th centuries, brought the idea of sauna bathing to Ireland with them.

[9] However, they were seen by some as a 'treatment for all ills' and were used to cure a wide range of maladies, such as fever, sciatica, lumbago, sore eyes, pleurisy, gout, pneumonia, influenza and arthritis.