It’s best to hold your breath if you happen to be jumping into an old whiskey barrel filled with ice-cold water after a session of serious sweating at one of Ireland’s new mobile saunas, like the one at Redbarn Beach in Youghal, Co Cork. However, mobile sauna owners around the coast won’t be holding theirs as they wait for local authorities to develop bylaws to facilitate, licence and regulate these operations.
Bureaucratic confusion and acres of red tape are threatening the future of this burgeoning business.
For now, it seems the sunny southeast county of Wexford will remain sauna-free, after executives told county councillors at a recent municipal district meeting that it was imposing “a blanket ban” on mobile saunas until further notice. “Our environment section is very nervous about anything which involves fires around beaches – it also has misgivings about how environmentally friendly the saunas are,” said Gorey Kilmuckridge Municipal District (GKMD) district manager Philip Knight.
Fianna Fáil councillor Joe Sullivan pulled no punches when he challenged the decision to take such a “sledgehammer approach”, arguing that “bylaws could be changed, if the will was there”. “Five years ago we had the same discussion about horseboxes and coffee,” he said. “And now there’s more coffee in horseboxes than horses.”
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Down the coast in Kerry, the official line is a bit more complex. Last September, Sinn Féin councillor Deirdre Ferris put forward a motion to allow mobile saunas to come under beach-trading bylaws. She cited the fact that since the Covid-19 pandemic, the rise in the popularity of sea-swimming had led to an increase in the numbers of such saunas around the coast.
Lauding the reported benefits of these leisure activities for mental and physical health, she argued that saunas were benefiting local communities as well as offering a new niche tourism product.
In response, Kerry County Council committed to carrying out a review of current casual trading bylaws to check if amendments could be made to them to facilitate the sauna businesses. A subsequent report by the council‘s chief executive confirmed that it would issue pilot licenses to two saunas, one at Banna beach and the second at Ballyheigue, while it went through the protracted process of drafting and adopting suitable bylaws.
Interestingly, Banna and Ballyheigue beaches are only 9km apart, while the entire coastline of Co Kerry is 886km in length. There are about six other saunas along the Kerry coastline, and at least 40 along the coast in Cork.
I happen to be familiar with all of this because my daughter operates a mobile sauna at one of the beaches in Co Kerry. She welcomes the county council‘s decision to implement a pilot study and looks forward to the regulation and licensing of her business. Indeed, she is a member of a group of 108 sauna operators, some of whom are in the process of creating an association to protect and regulate the industry. She first wrote to Kerry County Council in 2023 requesting a permit. The latest response, in early April, from its environment department states: “To the best of our knowledge there are no plans that we are aware of in this section to extend [the pilot study on Banna and Ballyheigue beaches] this to other car parks or areas around the county.”
Five years have passed since the pandemic led to a surge in interest in new ways to enjoy our coastline.
Once again though, the world of officialdom is on the back-foot, smothered by regulations and red tape.
The colourful and poetic names of these wood-burning barrel-shaped healing oases tell their own story: among them are Bosca Beatha, Wild Wellness, Sauna Suaimhneas, Sabhna, and my daughter’s Samhradh’s Sauna named after her much loved dog.
Owners are more often than not passionate about the outdoors, alternative lifestyles and the lost magic of our heritage. From salt scrubs to drumming workshops, Celtic tales and al fresco feasts around the summer solstice, these saunas are adding another layer to our culture. Could it be that our conservative establishment is suspicious of some of these operators, since they often don’t fit the stereotype of business owners?
It is not as if they are a totally new phenomenon in Ireland. Studies confirm that there were over 300 known stone sweat-houses in Ireland, some of which dated back to Celtic times. As Rosanna Cooney – author of a new book, Sweathouse – puts it, “they were very much part of the people’s apothecary”.
The contemporary sauna is no longer built like a cairn of stones or heated by turf, but the sense of wellbeing it offers remains much the same. The distinctive smell of wood-fired saunas adds to the sensual experience, particularly since many of them offer panoramic seascapes to be enjoyed while sweating in 90 degrees Celsius in the dry heat – no matter how wild the weather is outside. The reported health benefits of being immersed this immense heat followed by a plunge in cold water are said to include an increase in the rate of metabolism, and an improvement in blood pressure, along with cardiovascular benefits.
Surely it is a no-brainer for our local authorities to fast-track proper provisions for this wonderful new industry?
As Shirley Fitzpatrick, owner of Bosca Beatha, one of the first such saunas in the country, says: “It would be great if our county councils came together, communicated with each other and pooled their resources on how to support these small businesses.”
