Heating up: The rise of the mobile sauna along Ireland's coasts

As sea swimming and saunas soar in popularity, Ciara McDonnell meets the people behind the mobile saunas that have invigorated our coastal communities

Sat, 10 Jun, 2023 - 02:00

Ciara McDonnell

If 2020 was the year of the sea swim, 2023 is the year of the sauna. Over the last three years, the Cork coastline has become home to a necklace of wooden barrel-shaped saunas, pitched up on the sand offering a route to fire and ice.

The health benefits of cold water immersion are widely known, both to reduce inflammation in the body, increase our metabolism and kickstart our immune system.

Thanks to experts like Danish metabolic scientist Susanna Søberg, we are learning more about the immense health benefits of combined heat and cold exposure, and Irish people are reaping the benefits.

Søberg advocates 11 minutes cold and 57 minutes heat exposure per week, suggesting that it will result in better sleep, reduced stress, and optimum health.

Bronwyn Connolly bought her sauna during lockdown as a treatment for arthritis. She soon set up shop on Garretstown strand under the banner Wild Wellness Collective.

Since then, she has partnered up with fellow entrepreneur Olan Crowley of Bean & Berry and expanded with the big kahuna of Cork saunas, a custom-built 16-seater structure with a picture window overlooking the crashing waves.

The largest sauna in Munster, Wild Wellness has spawned a community over the last two years, offering yoga and sauna packages, full moon silent disco and sauna packages, and lots more besides.

Crowley’s coffee truck has just expanded into a bricks and mortar premises less than a five-minute walk from the sauna, breathing new life into the old Blue Horizon pub.

It’s this sense of community that best illustrates what fire and ice has brought to our shores. Connolly says that she is unsurprised that the sauna community has been so well embraced.

“This kind of heat therapy is in our DNA. Irish people have been using heat therapy since our beginnings.”

She is referring to a paper written by Katie Kearns and Timo Ylimaunu called The Sweathouses of Ireland: The disappeared folk tradition of sweat bathing.

“I ask my clients, what’s the best thing about being in the sauna, and they tell me it’s about the social side of it, and the feeling in your head.”

Sarah O'Donovan at Swede Sauna, Roberts Cove, Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

Combining saunas and activities

During the pandemic Swedish-born Sara O’Donovan found herself looking for more purpose in life.

Having grown up in a culture where most people had a sauna in their basement which the entire family used in winter time followed by a roll in the snow outside in order to bolster mental and physical health, she began to swim in the sea during lockdown.

Once her local sauna, Happy Place at Fountainstown, opened up she became a regular.

While there, she began talking to owner Luke about the business model he employs and began to consider starting her own sauna business.

This time last year, she opened Swede Sauna at Roberts Cove, with a firm focus on wellness.

O’Donovan offers both straight sauna sessions and collaborations with yoga companies and massage therapists, meaning that you can start your morning with sunrise yoga, followed by a sauna and a dip, or follow your heat treatment with a massage.

“Honestly, you haven’t experienced heaven until you’ve had a massage after a sauna,” she laughs.

Community is at the heart of O’Donovan’s business model. She’ll be offering a yogalates programme with TM Physiotherapy in July and also during the summer is teaming up with a swimming instructor to offer swimming lessons along with sauna sessions.

“We still have to discuss what level classes we will be doing, but one of them will definitely be beginners’ front crawl as that’s the one I’m signing up for,” she says.

Cork senior footballer Thomas Clancy (right) and Rob Nolan inside Donie McAuliffe's mobile Balmy Barrel Sauna pictured at Red Strand in West Cork. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

Social side of saunas

Despite a full-time job as a paramedic with the ambulance service, Rory Murphy spends all of his free time with his own barrel sauna, My Hot Spot, on Youghal’s Redbarn Strand.

An avid sea swimmer and sauna user, Murphy is passionate about the benefits to body and mind that regular hot and cold immersion offers.

He also believes that the social aspect of sauna use is one of the most medicinal parts of the experience.

“When you’re in the sauna you could be in there with people you’ve never met before, and the heat relieves the stress of this and sparks conversations that you might never have had before.”

During the month of May of this year, in conjunction with local charity the Community Health Project, My Hot Spot offered Mental Health Awareness Month sauna sessions, donating the money to the charity and with an intention of sparking conversations around the importance of our mental health.

“The idea behind it was to help to make this conversation a more normal thing rather than hiding it away.”

For Murphy, starting his sauna business both fills his own cup and helps him to help others.

“Right now I’m standing outside the sauna and looking at the beach with the waves crashing on the shore and wind blowing, and I don’t think you could be in a nicer place. That’s why I do this.”

When Donie McAuliffe came back to Cork from Canada at the beginning of the pandemic, he could never have predicted that he would find himself traveling all over West Cork, offering sauna sessions in some of the most picturesque parts of the country.

From Courtmacsherry to Red Strand, McAuliffe’s mobile sauna, the Balmy Barrel, offers community and craic in equal measure. On Thursday nights, he peels up at Red Strand where clients come to him for what they call the “detox before the retox”.

They follow their sauna with a pizza from the Wandering Wagon Pizzeria food truck before walking two minutes up the road to O’Donovans at Fisher’s Cross for live music and a pint.

McAuliffe says that no matter where he goes, he receives a warm welcome. When he pitches at Kilcrohane Pier at Sheep’s Head he is met with trays of sandwiches from local clients, and it’s this kind of community that makes him sure that he made the right decision starting his business.

From August through to the end of September, McAuliffe offers bioluminescence sessions, where he watches the weather for exactly the right kind of misty night, and lets followers know that they’ll be able to see the unbelievable splendour of plankton lighting up the waters of West Cork as they sweat.

Interior of Rory Murphy's My Hot Spot sauna based at Redbarn beach near Youghal in East Cork. Picture; Eddie O'Hare

‘Healthier and happier’

Bronwyn Connolly of Wild Wellness has watched the Cork sauna community grow with glee over the last two years.

As one of the country’s sauna pioneers, she says that the community of sauna owners is just as important as the community of their clientele.

Sharing of ideas, bolstering business and promoting newcomers is all an important part of the industry.

With a deep interest in the health benefits of their sector, Connolly is just back from a trip to Finland where she took a deep dive into the culture and research behind the process.

She is now the only certified sauna yoga facilitator in Ireland, with plans to develop this offering.

“Two years on, I am loving it more than ever. I love that I get to meet loads of lovely people from very interesting walks of life, and more than anything else, I love the fact that everybody who comes to us leaves us both healthier and happier. That’s the real joy.”

Seven of the best beach saunas in Cork

My Haven

If you don’t like the beach part of a beach sauna then My Haven at Oysterhaven is for you.

You’ll enjoy a fantastically chill playlist from owner Paul before running down a slipway and straight into the water for your dip. Stunning, every time.

myhaven.ie

@myhaven_oysterhaven

Happy Place

One of the original and the best, Happy Place at Fountainstown offers regular sauna sessions and also breathwork sessions inspired by Wim Hoff.

Message owner Luke for details on Instagram.

@happyplacesaunas

Wild Wellness

The largest sauna in Munster, Wild Wellness has space to store your shoes and a huge picture window overlooking Garretstown Beach.

Look out for weekly collabs with wellness companies

wildwellness.ie

@wildercork

Swede Sauna