A sweaty, salty trip along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way

The air is stuffy and hot as we slip through the door of this hut, a rush of chatter greeting us as we take our seats along a long wooden bench, not far from Silverstrand Beach, in Galway. We aren’t there long before a stranger leans over – “Where are you from?” he asks.

Soon, we’re in the midst of riotous noise. One patron recounts a failed fishing expedition the day before; another is tenderized from celebrating a 60th birthday. Soon, we’re all debating a central question: Which county will win the All-Ireland Gaelic Football Championship? (Soon, a local star – a player on Galway’s team – trots in. Admiring his fitness, the men in the corner issue a verdict: We’re winning it next year.)

Is this another Irish pub story? You’d be forgiven for thinking so. But it’s Sunday morning, we’re hardly clothed, and one by one, we rise from the bench and throw ourselves into the sea.

An ancient tradition, reimagined

Here at Power Saunas, I’m taking part in what has become an Irish sauna renaissance. This Scandinavian-style hut – the size of a small shipping container, with a long, plateglass window that looks out across the Galway Bay to the Clare hills – is one of dozens that have appeared along the coasts in the last 18 months, part of a cold-plunging ritual that sends patrons between sweat houses and Ireland’s frigid seas.

The holistic hype around the practice has been well established, from Maine to Minnesota, and Finland to Tasmania. But there is something special about this island’s sauna revival, an energy that’s hard to articulate. You’ve heard of the pubs, the late-night music sessions, the lyrical hospitality. But in these buzzy sweat houses, now ubiquitous across Ireland’s beaches, there is something more special, perhaps, because it’s unexpected. A cold plunge and a sauna? On this climatically fickle island?

“It’s happening for people at a very primitive level, every time they go into a sauna,” said Rosanna Cooney, whose book, “Sweathouse,” explores Ireland’s ancient and modern tradition. “There’s a memory being activated there. This isn’t something foreign. It’s something indigenous.”

Indeed, Ireland’s sauna revival is less an awakening than a rediscovery. The sweat lodge was once a central tenet of Irish and Celtic life, before the 19th-century famine tore the island’s social fabric apart. Now, aided by a flood of new sea swimmers forged during the isolated years of COVID, the people of this place are rediscovering the joy of sweating, together.

“Sixteen months ago, it went crazy,” said Leon Young of the demand for saunas. His sauna construction business, the Sauna Guys, founded in 2022, has recently expanded with its own sauna facility in Young’s native North Dublin.

Proof of the boom is everywhere: wooden huts on beaches; sauna barrels on trailers; heated havens on lakes and mountains. These sweat houses are bright and chatty, with wide plateglass windows, lashing rain and wild seas. Inside, no one is a stranger for long.

But as friends have trekked here to visit, I’ve been struck that the practice is often absent from travelers’ itineraries, forgone among the more twee checklist of pubs, brogues and sheep. In these seaside rituals is something just as distinctly Irish, as rooted in this place as stone walls and the native language. Stripped down and soaked, I wondered, what if you were to explore the island not through its pubs, but its saunas and seas?

Slowing down, with sweat and ocean

But where to start? The island’s shoreline – north and south – is full of deserving destinations. But I first began sea swimming in Galway, in the middle of Ireland’s famed Wild Atlantic Way, which runs from County Cork to County Donegal.

I plotted my journey along a central segment of this well-trodden route, to visit the sea, the saunas and some of the West’s most untamed corners. The journey was anchored by two popular tourist destinations – at the southern end, the Cliffs of Moher, in north County Clare, and at its northernmost point, Achill Island, in County Mayo. It meandered along coastal routes, through the Gaeltacht (Irish-speaking) region and out to Inishbofin, a rugged island off the Connemara coast.

There is no “right” time of year for the sauna, but it’s hard to deny the spirit that takes hold in Ireland as the seasons turn, when the weather grows wilder and sea temperatures plummet. My swim buddies and I call it the “buzz,” when the water starts to sting and our teeth chatter upon entry. Bounding between the fuzzy heat of a sauna and a churning sea, in the midst of an autumn gale – there’s a new (or perhaps old) Ireland to see.

A sauna journey in the wild west

By the time our tires crunch on the uneven gravel lot on the Clahane shore, my husband and I are a long way from the Zen afternoon we envisioned. The supposed 90-minute drive south from Galway (15 minutes from the Cliffs of Moher) has taken us far longer than expected, and we are a half-hour late for our sauna reservation, having endured this island’s time-honored gantlet of navigating rural roads during the tourist season. And inconveniently, we are already extremely hot – it is one of the warmest days ever recorded in the midst of a fickle Irish summer.

For the sake of all things good, holy and emotionally balanced, the last thing either of us thinks we ought to do is seal ourselves in a small wooden barrel and sweat.

But in Sauna Suaimhneas, a haven an hour south of the Cliffs of Moher, we step through a portal, enveloped by subtle hints of aroma oil and cedar in an hourlong session (15 euros, or about $17.50, in midweek, 20 euros, or about $23, on the weekend). The eight-person, barrel-shaped sauna sits at the start of the walkway to Clahane’s elevated, rocky shore – it’s a mildly challenging, two-minute trek from the sauna to the water, but navigating it becomes part of the fun. On breaks from the heat, we scramble down the uneven stone shelves into the inky waters of Liscannor Bay, swimming between fronds of seaweed and dreamlike moon jellyfish.

Ireland’s sauna scene is inherently transient; many of these huts, like Sauna Suaimhneas, are on wheels, movable to other shores. But Driftwood Sauna, about 20 minutes west of Galway in Spiddal, is an exception. Around since 2022, these sleek, Scandinavian-style sauna boxes have evolved on the village pier, and now have a rustic wooden boardwalk, plunge pools and changing huts. When we arrive on a quiet Sunday evening, the aesthetic is clean, calming and authentic – the owners Edward Corbett and Monique Tomiczek are generous hosts, mindful of small touches like large watering cans to use to shower off and cold lemon water.

We settle in a stunning, 12-person sauna, before a large window that looks like a postcard: dappled sunlight, rolling fields of wildflowers, stone walls. We breathe deeply and watch as beads of sweat collect on our skin, taking turns strolling to the edge of Galway Bay, cooling off in bursts during the 50-minute session (15 euros per person midweek; 17 euros on weekends).

Two hours north, drivable via bridge from the mainland, is Sabhna Sauna on Achill Island, where dramatic mountains drop sharply to the sea. We opt for an hourlong session (20 euros per person) in a shared, six-seater barrel, flitting between the sweat house and the crystal clear waters of Keel Beach, some of the most pristine in Ireland. We make a note to come back and visit Sabhna’s additional location on Keem Beach, where saunagoers are occasionally joined by Mayo’s famed basking sharks, creatures that are much gentler than the name suggests.

Finally, on a gray August morning, I trek with my swim partner out to Inishbofin, a rugged, rocky island off Galway’s Connemara coast. The 90-minute drive from Galway to Cleggan goes through the heart of Connemara – a worthwhile pit stop is Oughterard, a small fishing village where Sullivan’s Country Grocer features some of the best cinnamon buns (a steal at 2.50 euros each) this side of the Atlantic. Once at Cleggan, we park near the pier and board a 30-minute pedestrian ferry to Inishbofin, taking a leisurely walk east past whitewashed cottages and sheep to reach the island’s East End Bay.

There, the husband and wife duo Dave and Bronwyn Lavelle, have created a magical site in Sauna Bo Finne. With fairy lights, a barrel sauna and a tent with chairs, storage and room for changing, our 50-minute session of sweating (20 euros per person) feels otherworldly. By the time we’re sitting back at the harbor eating fresh squid, crab salad and fish burgers at the Beach Bar, a pierside pub, we are somewhere between relaxation and rapture.

Nursing two cold glasses of Guinness, as the mist rolls over Connemara’s distant Twelve Bens, I think back to an earlier conversation with Cooney, exploring the notion that Ireland’s saunas were its new pubs.

“In Finland,” she had said, chuckling, “they say ‘it’s the church.’ “

Are they really so different? Salt in our hair, the sea breeze in our face and a pint of plain – this is just communion from a different altar.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.