Dungarvan: Weekends have become a healthy habit for Sharon Fidgeon, a regular at Ireland’s famous beach saunas, which include the centuries-old Irish tradition of tanning.
On the sandy beach of Clonea on Ireland’s Atlantic coast, the 52-year-old artist told AFP that switching between the sauna and frozen seawater made him “so alive”.
“Once you’re up to your neck in the sea, it really gets the endorphins in your body,” said Fidgeon after lunch on a 1.2-mile, two-mile stretch near Dungarvan, County Waterford.
“Having the sauna here allows me to stay longer in the sea,” he says, donning a dry suit and sandals before quickly walking into a barrel structure on wheels on the beach.
In Ireland, the Covid-19 pandemic has increased sea vessels to escape the lockdowns.
Mobile saunas have become a post-Covid “extra”, according to Deirdre Flavin, who works with several on the Watford coast.
In addition to its health benefits, Flavin, 40, said the cozy boltholes were a welcome addition to Ireland’s wild and often wet and cold weather.
On the south coast of County Cork, customers at another sauna rated it as a great way to de-stress and recover after a vigorous workout.
Rory O’Callaghan, a 20-year-old student at Sports Grounds Ireland, said: “A lot of people in the hurling team want to go to the pool and sauna, it’s a team thing.” he plays with a stick.
Sauna owner Bronwyn Connolly suffers from arthritis, and when indoor public spaces were closed during the pandemic, she bought a small barrel sauna and brought it to Garrettstown Beach.
“I was struggling with a lot of pain, the sauna and cold water took it away, and swimming in the sea after sweating seemed to take away all the worries,” she told AFP.
As sports teams and corporate groups became more popular, he relied on books and YouTube videos to learn how and design bigger ones.
With a large window to one side and gently sloping tiered benches with fire, the group sat chatting and admiring the crash of the ocean waves down on the beach.
“It’s really become a social thing where friends or strangers can meet. The Irish are moving in the direction of less alcohol and something healthier,” Connolly told AFP.
“The first mobile sauna in 2021 is one of the first in the country, but now ‘they’re on every beach in Cork,'” he said.
The remains of hundreds of lighthouses – igloo-shaped stone structures heated by turf grass and used to sweat out colds and flu – dot the Irish countryside.
Ogaoga teacher Carol Ni Stasaigh and her husband Dara Kissane, an exercise physiologist, named their sea sauna at Wexford Beach the Sweathouse in a nod to the old ways.
“In the past, people would enter for medicinal, religious or hallucinogenic reasons,” Pantai Ni Stasaigh Baginbun told AFP.
“We do not guarantee hallucinogenic substances in our sauna, only hot and cold therapy and endorphin release,” he says.
Sharon Fidgeon told AFP that the sauna was an important element of her retreat in Waterford.
“This is an old Irish tradition. It’s really nice to be part of something old and Irish. It’s magical and very close to my heart.”
