The Irish Hot Press Is the Low-Tech Laundry Trick the World Needs
No Dublin home is complete without these frugal warming closets, which help improve life without a clothes dryer for residents in a drizzly climate.
Hung out to dry in Donegal, Ireland, in 2019. Contrary to reputation, Ireland's weather is frequently suitable for drying clothes outside.
Photographer: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images EuropeLook closely at the floor plan of an Irish home up for sale and you’ll often see a nook labeled with the letters “HP.” These initials mark the location of a clever piece of domestic equipment that is little known outside of Ireland (and somewhat on the wane at home). It’s called a hot press, and it deserves to be appreciated, and possibly even loved, across the world.
That name is somewhat confusing, because a hot press isn’t very hot and doesn’t press anything. What it is, in fact, is a warm enclosed space that sits usefully on the boundary between a clothes dryer and a regular closet — a space often referred to as a press in Ireland.