Teach Alais: The Irish Sweathouse

Stone sweathouses dot the Irish countryside. Little is known for certain about their traditional use, which faded in the wake of the Great Hunger. Combining the fragments of knowledge we can glean from history and folklore with an understanding of ancient Irish cosmology and with what we know of sweatlodges and saunas in other traditions, we will contemplate the role the teach alais may have played in Irish life and what a revival of the tradition might look like. Clear distinctions will be made between what we know and what we might imagine or intuit or surmise.