Our Story
An Sruthán began with what was already here: flowing spring water, old granite, mature trees and the natural contours of the land.
Rather than reshape the landscape around the sauna, the space grew within it, following its curves, preserving its character and giving new purpose to materials that had been here for generations.
The Name
An Sruthán means “the little stream.”
The name comes directly from the landscape. Spring water rises naturally from deep beneath the earth, feeds the plunge and continues its journey through the land beyond.
Our mark is the triquetra, an ancient three-pointed form found throughout Celtic art and tradition. Its three interconnected arcs have gathered different meanings across centuries, but the enduring ideas of connection, continuity and balance felt particularly at home here.
For An Sruthán, those three forms represent fire, water and earth. The fire that heats the sauna. The spring water rising beneath it. The land that holds them both.
Three elements, joined in one continuous form.
The Design
There is a softness to the shapes throughout An Sruthán.
The barrel of the sauna, the rounded form of the HUUM and its circular oak surround, the changing yurt and the curved edge of the plunge all echo the contours of the landscape around them. Paths wind rather than cut straight through. Stone borders follow the ground. Water finds its own way through it all.
Nothing feels imposed upon the landscape. Each element follows its lead.
The result is a space that feels less like it was placed here and more like it gradually found its place among the trees, stone and water.
The Materials
Much of the granite throughout An Sruthán came from the land itself: old gate pillars that spent generations in ditches and field boundaries, recovered and repurposed as benches, resting places and standing stones around the plunge.
Some still carry the original marks left where the granite was drilled and split by hand. Those imperfections were deliberately preserved, traces of the people and methods that shaped the stone long before it arrived here.
The intention was never to erase that history. It was to give it another purpose.
Today, those old pillars sit beside the water as places to rest between rounds, read, talk or simply watch the spring move past.
The Craft
Lighting and rope posts throughout the site are cut from hazel grown on the surrounding land, chosen for their natural twists, knots and bends rather than uniformity.
Each is finished with iron hooks heated and shaped by hand into curved and spiral fixings, joined by natural jute rope.
Hazel. Iron. Jute.
Each carries the marks of where it came from and the hands that shaped it.
The Land
An Sruthán was never intended to separate the sauna from its surroundings. What grows, moves and changes around it is part of the experience itself.
Ferns, mature trees and naturally occurring vegetation are allowed to retain their wild character, creating the feeling of a small woodland pocket growing around the sauna.
The path passes through an old orchard of apples, plums and pears. When the season allows, fruit is picked from the trees and shared with guests below.
Local quarry gravel, granite paving and stones gathered from the surrounding fields carry the same natural palette through the paths and bathing areas, grounding everything back into the Wicklow landscape.
The Journey In
There is a moment on the way to An Sruthán when the rest of the world begins to fall away.
The path does not take you straight there. It winds with the land, passing through the orchard and gradually drawing you down towards the trees. With each turn, the road slips further from view. The sounds of everyday life soften, replaced by running water, leaves overhead and, as you draw closer, the first glimpse of smoke moving through the branches.
Then the space begins to reveal itself.
The spring below. The old granite beside it. The sauna tucked among the trees. Fire waiting beyond the door.
That slow arrival is part of An Sruthán. A few quiet minutes between where you have come from and where you are going, allowing the pace of everything else to loosen its grip before you ever step into the heat.
By the time you reach the fire, the hour has already begun.Everything flows.
Spring through earth. Smoke through trees. Heat into cold. Old materials into new purpose.
