Sweathouses, known in Irish as tigh alluis, were stone structures used for therapeutic sweating, functioning something like a primitive sauna. A fire would be lit inside, the embers raked out, and the user would crawl in through a low entrance to sweat out ailments, particularly rheumatic complaints. They are found across Ulster and Connacht, but clusters of three within a single townland are unusual enough to catch the attention.

This particular example was identified in October 2021 by Aidan Harte, who coordinates the Leitrim Sweathouse Project, an effort to document these structures across the county. The site had already been mapped, however, more than a century and a half earlier. The first edition of the Ordnance Survey six-inch map, surveyed in 1835, marks it clearly with the abbreviation "Sweat Ho.", placing it roughly five metres south of a small eastward-flowing stream, on the opposite bank from a cluster of dwelling houses and outbuildings. That relationship between the sweathouse and the nearby settlement suggests it was in active community use at the time of the survey. It does not appear on the later Cassini edition of the same map series, which may simply reflect changing editorial priorities rather than the structure's disappearance. The other two sweathouses in Meenkeeragh townland lie approximately 175 metres to the east-northeast and 400 metres to the east-southeast respectively.