Ireland’s irresistible new spa utilises an unusual local ingredient

The water in the claw-foot tub is unctuous and thick with salt, great strands of seaweed furl and uncurl, like a beckoning hand.

It calls to me, and I’m powerless to resist this most Irish of health treatments.

At first look, the charms of county Sligo, on Ireland’s west coast, are limited.

As I’m running into the seaweed spa, slanting rain lashes my legs, the sky is slate grey, and the Atlantic Ocean is so wild, it’s been known to hurl rocks onto cars parked on the foreshore here in Strandhill. People rush past with plastic bags held over their heads; in the face of such fury, umbrellas are useless fripperies.

But when it comes to capitalising on your land’s gifts, Sligo is a master. Seaweed bathhouses are now dotted the length of Ireland’s west coast; and Voya is the reigning queen of the salty spas. Built on a site which has had bathhouses here since 1912, its new private suites look out to the ferocious Atlantic surf or back to the limestone hill of Knocknarea, where the Celtic queen Maeve sleeps in her neolithic tomb.

Soaking up Ireland ... the seaweed spa bath.Credit: Suzy McCanny Photography

Between the two fierce elements, my bathing suite comprises the bath and a glass steam room, to prep my skin for detoxification, improved circulation and deep moisturisation.

The seaweed hand beckons again, and I slide into the hot seawater, shedding my clothes like the selkies – seals in the water, human on land – who are said to haunt these shores at the edge of Europe.

“Ah, yes, the selkies!” says Anthony Gray, the effusive host and owner of Eala Bhan (White Swan) seafood restaurant in the city of Sligo, where I find myself later that evening, reborn and renewed. He waves his hand across his restaurant, whose walls are covered with quotes from Sligo’s most famous son, WB Yeats.

Ben Bulben Mountain, Sligo covered in snow during winter.

“Come away, O human child/To the waters and the wild.” The lyrical verse from The Stolen Child – who is lured away to the faery realm – is a chill poem, but it’s counteracted by the pleasant buzz in the restaurant, busy with locals and visitors on even a wet, blighted Tuesday night.

“For the good are always the merry,” as Yeats and Gray like to remind us through a quote written over the kitchen window, from which emerge my courses of plump local scallops and sweet hake.

“Of course, you’re going to see him?” asks Anthony. “He”, of course, is Yeats, who was buried in the church graveyard of the nearby village of Drumcliff in 1939. And, of course, I am.

Leaving Eala Bhan, the tangled, medieval streets of Sligo are whipped by fierce winds that force even the town’s mini-skirted teens to admit defeat and go home. I retreat to my hotel, a warm respite filled with Voya toiletries, a sweet bedtime treat of Lily O’Brien chocs from Co. Kildare and tea from the Dublin institution Bewleys.

The next morning in the car, after my fourth full Irish breakfast of this trip, the local radio station, Ocean FM, reads out the peat-burning times and obituaries, as I drive through villages of thatched roofs, whitewashed walls and the occasional red door. At St Columba’s church, beneath the brooding glare of Ben Bulben table mountain, Yeats sends a warning from the grave.

Sligo, Ireland.

Cast a cold Eye

On Life, on Death.

Horseman, pass by!

Thirty minutes later, I too am a horsewoman, though my sleepy Irish cob – Treacle by name and treacle by gait – pays no need to poets’ warnings. She is on auto pilot, wading through the deep, grass-lined tracks to Tullan Strand, over the border in Donegal. On the flat sand, Treacle slips into a brief, rolling canter, before reverting to her slow amble that leaves us both in a meditative state.

It is then, as a soft rain starts to fall on us both, that I realise they’re all linked: the seaweed baths, Elah Bhan, Treacle, Yeats’ grave and Queen Maeve’s tomb. Even the radio station.

It’s the call of the ocean. The song of the Atlantic.

It all comes back to the sea.

THE DETAILS

VISIT A 50-minute private steam and bath at Voya Seaweed Baths from €35, Strandhill, Co Sligo. See voyaseaweedbaths.com

A 90-minute beach ride with Donegal Equestrian Centre from €60. See donegalequestriancentre.com

STAY The 136-room Sligo Park Hotel from €109. See sligoparkhotel.com

EAT Serving the best Irish seafood in Sligo, Eala Bhán, ealabhan.ie

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Belinda Jackson was a guest of Tourism Ireland. See Ireland.com