SEAWEED BATHS: The Atlantic ocean resort of Enniscrone in south-west Co. Sligo is not only famous for its pristine beach running for six miles between white-capped ocean breakers and a range of sand hills, but it has long been celebrated for its soothing sea baths which are reputed to impart therapeutic blessings apart from being a deeply pleasurable sensual experience. Brothers Michael and Edward Kilcullen are the proprieters of a bath-house located at the Old Boat Port premises on the verge of the Atlantic. It has been echoing to the sound of running seawater and hissing steam since the turn of the century. It is enjoying a new lease of life having been discovered by health conscious young people who are drawn to mother sea. Edward Kilcullen, Jr., who runs the bathhouses, remembers when it was only old men and women in shawls to come in droves every summer for the seaweed baths. "It was regarded as a traditional remedy for aches and pains of rheumatism, the old people swore by it and they still do, and they'll tell you that they'd be crippled with rheumatism all winter if they didn't have the seaweed baths in summer." Edward believes that the secret is in the relaxation induced by immersion in the warm sea water, but it is very buoyant and can't help but promote a marvellous feeling of well-being. It has been found that seaweed baths are laced with natural oils and have an emollient effect on the bather's skin, as well. The seaweed bath tradition in Enniscrone goes back to the 18th century. The first bath-house was built around 1750 on the rocky seashore beneath the Enniscrone cliffs not far from the present Kilcullen establishment. This was no more than a single room used for the exclusive use of Christopher Orme, a landlord at the nearby Abbeytown demesne. Bathing in the ocean proper became popular in the 19th century when the masses followed the example of the Prince of Wales and other members of the British royalty who began wading into the breakers at Bognor Regis. People in prim and proper bathing suits took to the sea, too, on Enniscrone's magnificent crescent strand and the doors of Mr. Orme's seashore bath-house were discreetly opened to the public. By then the building had passed into the hands of the Blakeney family, who added four bathrooms into which the Atlantic was piped through corrosion-free copper conduits, heated to a comfortable temperature. No one is quite sure of whom came up with the inspired touch of adding the seaweed, but it was most likely Christopher Orme. The local gentry became regular patrons of the original bath house. Business appeared to be so good that Edward Kilcullen's great-grandfather felt there was a need for a second bath-home, prompting him to take a lease on the Boat Port land in 1898 when he intended to build one. It didn't happen until 1910 and it was Edward's grandfather who opened the new baths termed grandly Kilcullen's Moderate Bath-House. It cost a fortune in those day(1,000 pounds) to fit out the baths with the handsome Edwardian ornamentation in porcelain and heavy brass that are still in use in the modern premises. Galloway's of Sligo were called in to solve the massive puzzle of how to pipe in the Atlantic sea water and the job they accomplished was hailed as a masterpiece of the plumbing art. Originally the water was heated by turf-fired furances and on a busy Sunday a ton of peat would be burned to maintain the heat. It cost sixpence for a bath and once you were in your tub behind your bolted door, nobody would come to rout you out no matter how long you lingered. The ritual has not changed; you first sit into a wooden steam cabinet for a Finnish-style sauna; then it's into the porcelain tub filled with hot seawater and freshly-cut seaweed; finally, you step under an old-fashioned chain-pull shower of teeth-chattering cold water. The seaweed that is used is known as fucus serratus, a serrated brown wrack that gors profusely among the rocks on the shore. It is cut at low tide on the day it is to be used and carried in buckets to the bath-house. Immediately before use it is put under a jet of steam for 15 seconds and magically turns from dark brown to a beautiful bottle green, turning the water to amber and making it smooth and oily. For many years a quaint Edwardian-style tea room was run by Granny Kilcullen but they closed it after her death in 1964. More recently Edward and Christina Kilcullen have refurbished the bath house and reopened the tea-room. "We stepped back in time," said Edward. "I like old things, and I believe other people do too." - Excerpt, "Ireland of the Welcomes"