Douarnenez is a French town, east of the Iroise Sea, giving its name
to the bay of Douarnenez. It is part of the Finistère department in the
Brittany region.
The municipality was enlarged in 1945 by merging
with the neighboring municipalities of Ploaré, Pouldavid and Tréboul.
Douarnenez still retains the reputation of a large sardine port
associated with the canneries of the city. The whims of the sardine,
which disappeared from the bay over time, led to the gradual closure of
almost all sardine canning factories.
Douarnenez is today known
as a city with three ports: Port-Rhu, port of Rosmeur, port of Tréboul.
The Rosmeur fishing port of Douarnenez hosts a local flotilla of
fishermen. Its specialization in blue fish (sardines, horse mackerel,
anchovies, mackerel) is characterized by a very high proportion of
products sold off-auction. A thriving fishing port until the late 1970s
and early 1980s, in decline since then, it has rebounded in the 2010s.
The port of Douarnenez is being converted into a landing port for
fishing from other home ports and is diversifying into shipbuilding and
ship repair, boating and maritime services.
Tréboul and Port-Rhu
are important marinas in Finistère. The Port-Rhu has also hosted the
Port-museum of Douarnenez since 1993.
The Port-Rhu, which houses the port-museum of Douarnenez, a real
conservatory of old boats, and the Museum on land, which illustrates the
maritime life of Douarnenez. A website lists more than 9,000 boats,
4,000 press articles and 9,000 photos related to the maritime history of
Douarnenez.
Tristan Island: accessible on foot at low tide when the
tide coefficients exceed 90, the island is managed by the Coastal
Conservatory, accessible to the public only by authorization or certain
days of the year and supervised by a guard. Its exotic garden is home to
358 different floral species and protected animal species live on the
island such as the Quimper snail, the hoopoe owl or several species of
bats.
The Plomarc'h, natural and historical site: The Plomarc'h are
now a protected site of 16 hectares, acquired by the City of Douarnenez,
the department of Finistère and the Coastal Conservatory. The
municipality maintains a natural area open to the public, which includes
in particular an educational farm which raises farm animals of the
Breton breeds and cultivates, among other things, black wheat. The
woodlands are made up of the traditional trees of the region (chestnuts,
beeches, oaks).
The fortified enclosure of Kerbellay Lesperbé dated
from the high Middle Ages.
The church of Saint-Jacques de Pouldavid
(fourteenth and fifteenth centuries): built on a hillside, the church
has a nave with fourteenth-century arcades, a fifteenth-century porch,
and a sixteenth-century choir. The vault of the choir is decorated with
sixteen painted panels of the sixteenth century retracing scenes of the
Passion, but only fragments remain. The church contains several ancient
statues, including a pedestrian (late sixteenth century) on a stone
altar.
The church of the Sacred Heart of Douarnenez: in neo-Gothic
style, it was built by Joseph Bigot between 1874 and 1877; its spire was
however not completed until 1939. Its furniture dates for the most part
from the late nineteenth century.
The church of Saint-Joseph of
Tréboul, built according to the plans of Jean-Marie Abgrall between 1881
and 1884 includes a nave of six bays with aisles and a bell tower-porch
which gives access to it, located on the south aisle.
The chapel of
Saint-Jean de Tréboul, partially registered as historical monuments by
the respective decrees of November 25, 1924 for the bell tower and March
8, 1951 for the calvary. It dates from the eighteenth century, but with
a reuse of a previous building dating from the fifteenth century, in
particular for the windows. Its polychrome wooden high altar dates from
the eighteenth century. It has ancient polychrome wooden statues of the
Immaculate Conception, of an Angel of the Annunciation, two adoring
Angels, of Saint John the Baptist, etc. It served as a parish church
between 1841 and 1884. Its stained-glass windows, installed between 1986
and 1988, are by René Quéré. A mutilated ordeal dating from the
seventeenth century is located at a nearby crossroads.
The
Saint-Herlé church in Ploaré (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries): the
construction of the church began around 1548 as evidenced by an
inscription once visible at the base of the tower; the spire was built
in several stages during the seventeenth century. The whole is in
Cornish Gothic style. But the tower and its spire have been rebuilt
several times, probably after partial destruction due to lightning,
hence their composite character. The sacristy dates from the eighteenth
century,.
The Saint-Michel chapel, classified as historical monuments
by decree of July 19, 1957. It is located 50 m from the port-museum of
Douarnenez and the media library; an earlier chapel of the same name is
mentioned in 1312, but the current chapel was built between 1663 and
1668 on the site of the house where the preacher Michel Le Nobletz would
have lived; its furniture, in Baroque style, among others an altarpiece
with twisted columns, dates from the seventeenth century. The chapel is
best known for the paintings of its paneling which illustrate in 52
panels the taolennoù of Michael The Nobletz, representing the mysteries,
the Guardian Angels, etc.
The Sainte-Hélène chapel on the port of
Rosmeur dates from the seventeenth century, but was very remodeled in
the eighteenth century. It includes a nave of three bays with aisles, a
high altar and two side altars with altarpieces dating from the
eighteenth century and numerous statues. Two stained-glass windows date
from the sixteenth century and are probably due to a Spanish craftsman.
It is registered as a historical monument on April 10, 2012.
The
Sainte-Croix chapel in Ploaré is an almost square-plan building that
dates from the seventeenth century, registered as historical monuments
by decree of May 11, 1932.
The statue of the Bolomig, Place Gabriel
Péri, near the fishing port, from where he monitored the entrance of the
rowboats.
The memorial in Laënnec next to the Saint-Herlé church in
Ploaré.
The temple of Trégouzel in Ploaré: ancient Roman temple, some
remains remain.
The Cornic villa, built at the end of the nineteenth
century by the Le Guilloux de Pénanros family, then bought by the Cornic
spouses, veterinarians in Quimper, before being bought by the city in
1964, which sells it in 2020.
The fresco in 12 paintings by Charles
Kerivel representing the adventure of the sardine on the old Chancerelle
factory in Rosmeur (heavily faded).
The coastal path (part of the GR
34) going from Douarnenez to the Tip of the Van, is about fifty
kilometers long and it takes about a dozen hours for good walkers to
walk it. Very rugged, in all the addition of the differences in altitude
exceeds 2,000 meters) this trail allows you to discover the points of
Leydé, Mare, Thousand, Beuzec, Luguénez, Brézellec and Van (with its
Saint-They chapel), the barred spurs of Castel-Meur and Kastel-Koz
(Castel Coz), Pors Lanvers, Pors Péron and Pors Théolenn, the
Goulien-Cap Sizun nature reserve, the Thousand lighthouse (which hosts
the exhibitions in the summer), Ti Felix (house bought and restored by
the town of Goulien).
The marine cemetery of Tréboul.
The name of Douarnenez appears for the first time in
the form Douarnenectz in 1505; it is written Douarnenes in 1520 in a
“sealed letter” from King François I to the “Chancellery of
Brittany”.
The name of the locality is mentioned in the form
Leones in 1154 (attested on the map in Arabic language of Al
Idrissi, could, according to Bernard Tanguy, represent an evolved
form of the Latin legionense, "city where a Roman legion is
stationed"); in the Latin form Insula Videlicet Sancti Tutuarni
(translation of the Breton Tutuarn Enez "island of Saint Tutuarn")
in 1138; then in the forms Insula Trestani (Enez Tristan) in the
fourteenth century; Terrouer of Douarnenes in 1540; Town and Bourg
of Douarnenes in 1541; Douar an enez in 1598.
The port,
before becoming Douarnenez in 1541, was called "hamlet of
Saint-Michel" then "village of the island of Tristan" in 1520.
The name Douarnenez would come from the Breton expression Douar
an enez ("the land of the island" in French), the site then
depending on the Tristan Island. This hypothesis is made credible by
Father Maunoir who, in the seventeenth century named the locality in
Latin terra insulæ, because the location depended on the priory of
Saint-Tutarn located in Tristan Island. Another hypothesis puts
forward the idea that the name “Douarnenez” comes from the very name
of the Tristan Island, Tutuarn enez or Toutouarnenez in Breton.
Its inhabitants bear the name of Douarnenistes; their neighbors
sometimes call them (especially the women) Penn Sardin, in reference
to the work of the canneries which consisted, among other things, in
cutting off the heads of sardines (meaning head in Breton).
Due to its storm-protected location, the place already served the
Romans as a port before the difficult passage to Britain. Garum, a fish
sauce used throughout the Roman Empire to flavor dishes, was also made
here.
Over the centuries, the city developed into an important
fishing port. Almost all the men and boys went fishing in single-masted
boats; the average crew consisted of three men. There were several
hundred boats that set sail at the same time, hoisting their sails, most
of which were dyed reddish tan. Depending on the fishing opportunities,
the crews stayed at sea for several days and then lived on a piece of
bread, water they took with them and bycatch, which was cooked on a
small stove in the boat. In the sun, wind or rain, they only protected
canvas clothing, trousers and a wide top, some of which, like the sails
themselves, had been made waterproof with tree resin. Not all had clogs,
many were barefoot. The traditional fish marketed in the factories were
tuna and sardines. Fishing was supplemented by meager farming (cabbage,
potatoes, grain) on very small plots.
In 1641, the Jesuit priest
Julien Maunoir carried out his first mission in Douarnenez.
Douarnenez prospered in the 19th century when the invention of the tin
can allowed fish to be sold to distant regions. The most important role
was played by the sardine, which had a French monopoly on canning. By
the middle of the century, 40 fish factories had settled in the city,
where mainly women and girls found work. When the shoals of sardines
suddenly stopped around 1880, this led to a depression with poverty and
mass unemployment. The female population tried to earn a living with
lace and crochet work commissioned by factories, others increased the
artisan production of iodine blocks from seaweed (in well-designed ovens
that can still be found on the shoreline today). , which were then sold
to pharmaceutical factories. With new fishing techniques, larger boats
and thanks to the fact that after 20 years the shoals of sardines
returned to the coast, the fishing industry was able to recover. Today,
Douarnenez is the sixth most important fishing port in France. There is
still one of the old fish canning factories that also sells its gourmet
sardines in Germany.
The home port identifier on the boat hulls
is "DZ".
In "Port Rhu", which is partially artificially flooded,
there is a museum on the topics of local fishing and maritime trade
history, wooden sailing workboats, and the international development in
boat building, from dugout canoes to ocean-going sailing ships.
International sailing ship meetings took place in the 1990s.