ESIN
European Small Islands FederationArchive for People
A place to Bere in mind
Bere island lies in Bantry Bay, in the shadow of the famous Hungry Hill though with a high point of 267m at Knockallig is no mere pancake itself.
Bere Island is the second largest Irish island when islands connected by causeways or bridges are discounted. It is outranked only by Inishmore. In terms of population it is also the second ranked according to the same criterion with 216 people (2011 census). In common with other large islands it was once inhabited by over 1,000 people and peaked in 1926 with 1,182.
Islanders and best friends, Michael Orpen and Aoife Walsh, Bere Island, West Cork, running to rehearsals in the local heritage centre for their annual Nativity School Play. Michael played the part of Joseph and Aoife played the part of Mary in this year’s schools production on the Island
Photo:Valerie O’Sullivan
And where many islands have dwindling populations with few activities, the phenomenal community spirit of Bere Island binds the island together as well as bringing in many visitors for these events. The list of activities upcoming for 2018 would put many large towns to shame. Some of the events planned include a religious retreat at Easter, an islands’ festival in June, Children’s summer camp in July, A Heritage Week in August and the All-Island football tournament in September. With hotels, B&Bs, Airbnbs, bars, cafes, restaurants and its Bakehouse Cafe with its sizzling garlic prawns, the over-riding impression of Bere Island is of a thriving
island community.
Scoil Mhicil Naofa is the school on Bere Island, which in the early 1900s, once had a total of three schools. It is the ’last school standing’ in Bantry Bay’s islands with two teachers and 18 pupils.
West Cork’s islands are taking a population battering, with Sherkin Island’s school closing, after 124 years’ service to the community, in 2016. Whiddy and Dursey also had their own schools. The school on Whiddy Island closed in 1947 with seven children on the roll, and the Dursey Island school was forced to close in 1975 when there were just five pupils left.
Principal of Deirdre Ní Dhonnchada explains how, as with all small rural schools, maintaining numbers is a constant issue: ‘This year five pupils will be leaving to start secondary school in Castletownbere and we have only three children due to start school. We currently don’t have anyone in second class, as there was no intake that year,’ she said.
Principal Ní Dhonnchada and Katrina Ladden both live on the mainland and travel onto the island every day by ferry. Support teacher Caoimhe Healy joins them two days a week. Katrina teaches junior infants to second class, and Deirdre teaches third to sixth classes, with school secretary Marion O’Sullivan keeping everything running smoothly.
Sonia O’Sullivan with Bere Island national school Photo Niall Duffy @WestCorkPhoto
Physical activity is a big part the curriculum. Deirdre Ní Dhonnchada says: ‘We were actually one of the first schools in Beara to start weekly swimming lessons.’
Once a week, the children travel to the Westlodge Hotel in Bantry for their lesson. ‘Being on an island just means it takes a bit of extra planning. Whereas a mainland school needs to organise a bus to Bantry, we need to organise a boat to get us to the bus!’
Deirdre Ní Dhonnchada feels that ultimatley teaching in an island school doesn’t pose any major challenges. ‘It all takes a little bit more planning, but the very nature of an island community means that people always rally round to help out. The school is very much part of the community here, and we know anytime we need any assistance in arranging something, we only have to put the word out, and it happens.’
See earlier blogs https://europeansmallislands.com/2016/12/04/small-island-schools-perform-well/ (Norway) and https://europeansmallislands.com/2016/09/01/primary-schools-study/ (Clare Island and Sweden).
Many thanks to the Southern Star and the Irish Examiner:
Congratulations Estonia
100 years ago the peace talks between Soviet Russia and the German Empire collapsed and the Germans accupied mainland Estonia (but not the islands). The Estonian National Council Maapäev issued an Estonian Declaration of Independence on 23 February, 1918. It was read to the people from the balcony of the Endla Theatre in Pärnu at eight o’clock in the evening but not until next morning, Estonia was publicly proclaimed as an independent and democratic republic. It was the 24 February 2018.
There was not yet a happy ending, however. Next day, German troops entered Tallinn. The German authorities recognised neither the provisional government, nor its claim for Estonia’s independence, counting them as a self-styled group usurping sovereign rights of the German-Baltic nobility.
Imperial germany was crushed in the First World War and Estonian was free from 1920. With the outbreak of the Second World War, Estonia was invaded first by Soviet and then by Germany and then by Soviet again, who made it a Soviet Union until 1991.
Estonia is a strange country: they sing a lot, they don’t go to church, there much more women than men (100/84) and they have 800 islands more than hitherto believed. The official number of Estonian islands now stands at 2,355 if you count islands in lakes.
This is one third more than previously believed and due to improved survey methods showing that Estonia has a total of 2,355 islands and islets, instead of the previously held 1,521.
However, only 318 of these are larger than 1 hectare, or 10,000 square meters.
Agnes Jürjens from the Land Board says improved technology allowed researchers to succesfully map small, previously unaccounted for islets and holms. “In addition, the ground has risen in northern and western Estonia, and the changing water level, as well as storms, can also alter the coastline,” she explained.
The news might come as further blow to neighboring Latvia, which has a famously low number of islands, officially at 1, and that too is man-made. Latvia did issue claims to Runö = Ruhnu at the beginning of last century, but the island, which lies closer to Latvia than Estonia, was added to Estonia in 1919.
One way to reach Estionian islands is on the ice roads used in winter. It is an unusual “fixed link” and a beautiful experience.
Open
Closed
Europe’s friendliest island?
Tilos won the EU Sustainable Energy Award 2017 with its renewable energy-based battery station and smart microgrid, sending a very strong message that alternative, community-level schemes that foster energy storage are becoming a viable reality and a way to address energy security for islands.
But the 800-strong community might also be Europe’s friendliest island, having made 50 refugees feel at home. New arrivals are being given accommodation and residency, as long as they work and integrate.
Most migrants in Greece live in camps, while Tilos has housed 50 migrants.
Kaousay al Damad came to Tilos from a camp on Lesbos. He works in the bakery: – “I lost seven months in Lesbos. I need work. I’m not coming here for eating, for sleeping, for ‘please give me money’ or ‘please give me home.’ When I arrived to Tilos, all my life changed. This is not Tilos. This name is not Tilos, it is dreamland.”
The Syrians of Tilos have been here less than a year. Many locals hope they will stay.
Maria Kamma is the Mayor of Tilos: ”If this small island managed to do this then it is a bright example that with a little bit of effort there will be no refugee crisis, no humanitarian crisis, there will be no refugee problem, not only in Greece but in all of Europe, too.”
Maria Kamma is the chairman of the Greek island organisation Hellenic Small Islands Network (HSIN), proud member of ESIN, which will hold its 2018 annual general meeting on Tilos in May, 2018.
No plastic bags for Christmas, please!
From Tilos to Samothrace and from Alonnisos to Lipsi islands, 49 schools across the Aegean Sea took part in a campaign organised by DAFNI – the Network of Sustainable Greek Islands, in collaboration with the Hellenic Recycling Agency.
It was part of the European Week for Waste Reduction and engaged 1708 students from 28 Greek islands. Teachers together with municipality representatives handed out ecological cloth bags to students, highlighting the importance of re-use for waste reduction – plastic in particular. During the action, participants delivered presentations and discussed the need for product re-use and repair, which will help islands transition into a circular economy path.
This is a particularly important for island regions, where the intense seasonal demand for services takes a heavy toll on both infrastructures and resources, making sustainable resource and waste management an imperative for sustainable local development.
Adding Greek islands on the EWWR map of areas that are frontrunners in waste reduction and responsible resource use is meant to also underscore the potential of islands to emerge as test-beds that can host pilot projects and produce knowledge on smart and efficient resource and infrastructure management, tapping the synergies between energy, transport, water and waste.
Thank you DAFNI and let’s hope for an un-wasted, happy new 2018!
Another excellent island journal
The fifteenth issue of ID-Îles Magazine, as always well edited by researcher PhD Laura Corsi, was published late in December. It questions the social and economic changes that the islands have undergone in the last four years. Entrepreneurs filmed back in 2013 testify to their experience: the gardeners of the island of Groix managed to build their shed, the baker & grocer of the island of Sein took a coffee on the docks, and the manufacturer of weathervanes of Ushant continues his activity, but living on the continent.
Louis Brigand and Denis Bredin
After 17 minutes, we meet Denis Bredin and Louis Brigand, speaking about the tight cooperation between the University of Brest and the AIP (l’Association des îles du Ponant), the development of the islands of Brittany, how they managed to show island life is more expensive on islands ans subsequently obtain additional funding from the Region and the State, and the creation of an island product brand called ”Savoir-faire des îles du Ponant” https://savoirfaire-ilesduponant.com launched in September 2017.
French island product brand site
The ID-Îles Magazine was a project 2011-2014 in cooperation between AIP and the University of Brest. It continues 2014-2018, thanks to the workshop on island entrepreneurship held on the island of Groix in October 2013 with 120 persons (one third entrepreneurs, one third local politicians and one third researchers). That workshop led to a thirteen-islands joint project coordinated by professor Louis Brigand, including ID-Îles, an internet site with all project documentation, and a monthly 26-minute television programme. You can see all the programmes here: http://www.tebeo.bzh/replay/182-id-iles.
Workshop on Groix 2013 with géographers Solenn Le Berre and Mathilde Woillez entouring President of AIP Denis Palluel, professor Louis Brigand and Councellor of Groix Claude Guiader
Precious Island Journals
Just in time for Christmas, two island journals landed in our postbox: Finnish Skärgård which is celebrating its 40th year, and issue no 170 of Danish Ø-Posten.
Skärgård is a bit more international this time. It has an article by John Wrede, Micaela Jansson and Pia Prost on ESINs meeting on Orkney, entitled “The island where 130,000 sheep have their backs in the same direction” and features a photo of the inlet of Aberdeen. There is an article written by Dorthe Winter, chairman of the Danish small islands titled “Can you grow old on you island?”. She is raising the important question of equal island and mainland social services and describes how the issue is being handled, right now, in Denmark.
Pia Prost, ESINs most talented island portraiter, has written a both technical and poetical article describing Karlö island, situated far north in the Baltic Sea.
Ø-Posten has a portrait of a family with thee kids moving to Egholm island on the cover.
There is information on Local Action Group work and financing 2017, a short report from each and everyone of the 28 small islands in Denmark (small meaning not a municipality) and on a visit to Anholt island made by some of the boardmembers in October. Anholt is one of the most remote small islands, situated out in Kattegatt. It boasts a yearly cultural festival called Lantgude.com (faraway.com).
Without island journals like these and without the people who write, design and publish them, island knowledge would be poor. They describe modern island life, people and politics, ferries and festivals, conflicts and culture. They are precious to us all and I invite everybody to get a subscription, eh well maybe not if you don’t speak Danish or Swedish…
This said, the ESIN Board wishes all islanders of Europe a Merry Christmas and a Sustainable New Year with lots of hopes, happiness and love.
Swedish islands periodical turns 10
We have a soft spot for genuine islands journals – not touristic glossy magazines, but low-key, locally produced periodicals done by the islanders for the islanders.
Swedish “Vi skärgårdsbor” (=We islanders) has just issued its 40th number and has thus been published for 10 years. Congratulations!
N.o 40 contains a nice reportage from Kökar by Eva Widlund, the ever engaged, energetic and irreplaceable editor of the periodical. Thanks Eva.
Sorry for some of you guys, it is only in Swedish.
