Île-de-Sein
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Île-de-Sein Enez Sun |
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| region | Brittany | |
| Department | Finistère | |
| Arrondissement | Quimper | |
| Canton | Douarnenez | |
| Coordinates | 48 ° 2 ′ N , 4 ° 51 ′ W | |
| height | 0-9 m | |
| surface | 0.60 km 2 | |
| Residents | 249 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 415 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 29990 | |
| INSEE code | 29083 | |
 The church of the parish of Île-de-Sein with the " Menhirs ar Brigourien" or "Les Causeurs" |
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The Île de Sein ( Breton: Enez Sun ) is a French island and commune in the Finistère department in Brittany . The inhabitants of the island call themselves Sénans (Breton: Suniz ). Together with some neighboring small islands, it forms the municipality of Île-de-Sein with 249 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017).
geography
The island, located about eight kilometers from the Pointe du Raz on the French Atlantic coast , belongs to the Cornouaille . Its area is a good 60 hectares. It is approached by ship from Saint-Evette near Audierne . The crossing takes 60 minutes.
It is a good six kilometers long and between 100 and 800 meters wide. The rocky Île de Sein is very flat, the highest point is only nine meters high, so that the island is threatened by flooding during high tide
history
The island has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The Roman geographer Pomponius Mela describes it in his work De chorographia (Chap. III.48) as the location of an oracle operated by nine magical priestesses, about which he gives a detailed report. (This description made its way into world literature in that it was used in the 12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his Vita Merlini to decorate the oldest detailed description of the island of Avalon in Arthurian literature with some colorful details.)
The island's inhabitants were particularly active in the Resistance : When Charles de Gaulle read his famous appeal on June 18, 1940 on the BBC , the Île de Sein, unlike the rest of Brittany, had not yet been occupied by the German Wehrmacht . From June 19 to 26, all male residents of military age who were fishermen in the civilian profession cast off their ships and joined the armed forces of Free France . They initially made up a quarter of the Forces Navales Françaises libres ("Free French Navy", FNFL for short) and prompted de Gaulle to comment: "The island of Sein is a quarter of France". At the end of the Second World War , the Île de Sein was one of the five cities that received the Ordre de la Liberation by General de Gaulle's decree of January 1, 1946 .
Population development
| year | 1962 | 1968 | 1975 | 1982 | 1990 | 1999 | 2009 | 2017 |
| Residents | 1094 | 835 | 607 | 504 | 348 | 242 | 202 | 249 |
| Sources: Cassini and INSEE | ||||||||
Attractions
- Menhir pair Les Causeurs ( Monument historique )
- Le Nifran (the crow's nest) dolmen
- Îlot de Kélaourou ( Allée couverte )
- Les Menhirs ( stone row )
- Parish Church of St-Guénolé (Île de Sein)
- Chapel of St-Corentin
- Grand phare de l'Île de Sein
See also: List of Monuments historiques in Île-de-Sein
coat of arms
Blazon : "A silver disc in blue, inside a black ermine , angled tiller- wise (right, left, below) of three golden lobsters."
Economy and Infrastructure
Since agriculture is not possible on the small island, almost all of the inhabitants of the village of the same name live from fishing and increasingly from tourism . Especially in the summer months there are regular ferry connections to the mainland several times a day.
Even if there are already numerous overnight accommodations, numerous day tourists visit the island , especially in summer . There are several lighthouses on the island itself and the surrounding rocky reefs, most visitors pass the Phare de Men Brial at the harbor.
The island and its surroundings are now a nature park, not least because of the seabirds that breed here.
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes du Finistère. Flohic Editions, Volume 2, Paris 1998, ISBN 2-84234-039-6 , pp. 1152-1153.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hofeneder, Andreas: The religion of the Celts in the ancient literary evidence. 3 volumes (= Austrian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class, Announcements of the Prehistoric Commission, Vol. 59, 66, 75), Vienna: Verlag der Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 2005–2011.
- ↑ Matthias Egeler: “Sena and Avalon. Some Comments on Geoffrey of Monmouth, Vita Merlini 908-940 ”, in: Quaderni di Filologia Romanza 22 (2014), pp. 99-112.