Clever those Irish!

When I first went to Ireland in 1985, I saw something in the loo at the Downhill Hotel, Ballina, County Mayo that fascinated me.  First, I should say the Downhill Hotel was much nicer than the name would convey stateside.  And, each time I travel to Eire, I see it again; most recently I saw it again at the Blarney Woolen Mills Hotel on my 6th trip to Ireland this past week.  It's a towel rack, but not just any towel rack.  I'll include a pic at the end of this post, but for now, let me try to explain it.  The towel rack is made from a series of pipes and the pipes are hooked to the plumbing system.  When you turn on the shower, before the water gets to the shower head, it runs through this series of pipes first, and then comes out of the shower head.  Now, you're probably starting to nod and smile.  The towels hanging on thses pipes with the hot water running through become heated themselves as the water passes through the rack.  FREE heated towels at no additional cost!!  Do you know how nice it is to have heated towels to use after a shower in November in Ireland (or in NJ anytime between November and March?). By the way, you can't really tell from the photo, but the rack IS outside of the shower stall... just thought I'd mention that.
Now, I'm not real handy with tools, so I never built one, but I suppose if I were remodeling my bathrooms soon, I just might just have to check an Irish plumbing fixture guide and add one of these to the bill.
Pretty clever for a little country tucked up north of the UK.  But there's one thing they haven't learned about yet... butter substitutes... and thank god for that.