Bathing Bathing Review of the evidence for bathing.
Bathing seems to have been an important act in ancient Ireland.
We know this because in old Irish there was a fairly specialised terminology associated with it. The word folcud refers to washing the head. Indmat or more commonly indlat is the term used for washing the hands or feet. What this all goes to tell us is that bathing was a normal part of the routine of personal hygiene in ancient Ireland and if this is so then fulachta fiadh with their hot water may also have been used as centres for ritual or recreational bathing as they were in other countries from prehistoric times onwards. I found there to be a wide range of ethnographic evidence of sweat baths and saunas.