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Dinard (Municipality, Ille-et-Vilaine, France)

Last modified: 2023-08-23 by olivier touzeau
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Flag of Dinard, last observed in 2014 - Image by Olivier Touzeau, 6 October 2021

• Presentation of Dinard
• Flag of Dinard, 1998-2014
  • District flags
• Former flag of Dinard
• Cercle Celtique de Dinard
• Yacht clubs
  • Yacht Club de Dinard
  • Club Nautique de Dinard

See also:

• France
• Ille-et-Vilaine (Department, France)

Presentation of Dinard

The municipality of Dinard (9,936 inhabitants in 2015; 784 ha) is located opposite Saint-Malo, across river Rance.

Ivan Sache, 11 February 2006

Flag of Dinard, 1998-2014

Flag of Dinard, 1998-2014 - Image by Olivier Touzeau , 23 August 2023

The flag of Dinard used from 1997 to 2014 (photo, photo) is composed of ten horizontal, alternating blue and white stripes. Along the hoist is placed a wide vertical yellow stripe, charged with a standing black bear (in Berlin style). The bear is surmounted by an antique yellow crown.
Sketched by Philippe Rault and designed by the professional art designer Jakez Derouét, the flag was presented to the public on 25 May 1998. This is the result of work by the Breton Vexillological Society, commissioned in 1997 by the Municipal Council of Dinard to submit proposals for a new flag.
The only requirement imposed by the Municipal Council was explicit reference to King Arthur, the mythic founder of the town. Blue and white, the town's colors adopted in 1989, refer to Arthur's alleged arms, "Azure, three crowns or". The horizontal stripes represent the sea and Dinard's emblematic, stripy beach tents. The number of stripes is meaningless. Yellow represents the thin sand of the beaches.

The bear is King Arthur's symbolic representation. Arthur landed near Dinard in spring 513 to help the Breton King Hoël to repel the Frisian invaders. He built there a fort named Dinarthu, the Bear's fort. In Breton, arth / arz means "a bear", representing the military power of royal essence. Dinarthu became Dinarth and later Dinarz, translated to French as Dinart, and finally, erroneously changed to Dinard when the place became popular at the end of the 19th century.
[P. Rault. L'histoire des drapeaux bretons, 1998 [rau98]; P. Rault. Ar Banniel [arb], No. 6, July 1998]

Marie-Paule Chevalier, then President of the Association of the Friends of Dinard and, subsequently, Municipal Councillor in the opposition group, said that the suppression of the former coat of arms with the ermines on the red and green background was an outrage to the ancient inhabitants of Dinard. She also complained that the new flag had not been discussed during any session of the Municipal Council.
[Ouest-France, 9 August 2005]

Ivan Sache & Pascal Vagnat, 16 October 2005

Former District flags

District flags of Dinard - Images by Olivier Touzeau, 6 October 2021

Flags were created in 2006 for the various districts of the town; they were specially designed for a friendly meeting between the districts' inhabitants in equestrian events held on Plage de l'Écluse.
The flags are based on the municipal flag of the time; they retained the yellow hoist stripe with the crowned bear, adding the district's name above. The white field had five stripes per bend sinister, with a distinctive color for each district: Les Cognets, purple; Quartier de la Gare [Station borough], black; Hôtel de ville [Town Hall], blue; Le Prieuré [Priory], greenish; Saint-Alexandre, orange; Saint-Énogat, red.
[Drapeaux de Bretagne et d'ailleurs, 15 December 2006]

Olivier Touzeau, 6 October 2021

Former flag of Dinard

Former flag of Dinard, two versions: left, before 1998; right, as observed in september 2014- Images by Olivier Touzeau, 6 October 2021

The flag used in Dinard until 1998 (photo, photo is a banner of the municipal arms, based on the arms of the Priory of Dinard (founded 1324), "Vert, a cross ermine". A red vertical stripe is added to each quarter and the ermine spots are bicolor (black and white), a unique and unexplained occurrence in Brittany It was often replaced with a simpler vertically divided green-red flag.
[P. Rault. L'histoire des drapeaux bretons, 1998 [rau98]]

The flag was replaced in 1998 by a new one (see above). Elected in 2014, Mayor Martine Craveia-Schütz decided to have it gradually withdrawn.
"In front of public buildings, precedence should be given to the French and European flags. I wish to offer them again space on Republican locations so as not to lose sight of the values of the Republic and of Europe. Dinard's 'pennants' are not official flags, therefore I decided to withdraw them. The idea is not to deprive anyone of a symbol, moreover everyone is free to do what s/he wants and to buy the flags of Dinard to display them on his/her house, but on the official places, the Republican symbols takes precedence". Sylvie Mallet, leader of the opposition at the Municipal Council, who served as Mayor of Dinard between the death of her husband in 2010 and the elections of 2014, pointed out an aspiration to division: “Displaying the flag of Dinard did not prevent from honoring the national and European flags. This is a false pretext to get rid of the flag of Dinard. To me, this is part of an aspiration to wipe out the past".
A petition launched by the Collectif de Dinardais pour le rétablissement du drapeau historique de Dinard collected, as of 29 July 2014, 141 signatures.
[Ouest-France, 29 July 2014; Le Télégramme, 31 July 2014]

The mayor announced on 15 September 2014 that Dinard would regain its "historical flag", the flag designed by priest Mathurin and adopted by the Municipal Council in 1905. "Many long-time inhabitants wanted to recover the real historical flag of the town" she said. "Not attractive enough, the flag will be brought up to date starting from the original coat of arms of the priory which appears on the stained glass window of the chapel", the priory being "Dinard's true cradle".
[Le Pays Malouin, 15 September 2014]

According to local historian Henri Fermin, the "historical" flag of Dinard was ordered in 1905 by Mayor Jean-Marie Degas to Priest Joseph Mathurin, the town's first historian, author in 1897 of Dinard-Saint-Énogat à travers les âgzs. The priest discovered the oldest document mentioning Dinard, the chanson de geste from the 12th century Le roman d'Aquin ou la conquête de la Bretagne par Charlemagne, which identifies the castle de Dinard. Mathurin, keen on heraldry, proposed to use for the town's flag the arms of the Trinitarian priory of Dinard. In the 13th century, brothers Olivier and Geoffroy de Montfort, residing at the manor of La Motte in La Richardais, set out on a crusade. Taken prisoner in Cyprus by Muslims, they were released after the Trinitarians, a Roman Catholic order founded in 1194 to free Christian prisoners, had payed the ransom. Back home, the knights rewarded the Trinitarians by founding the priory of Dinard in 1324 and a chapel at La Richardais. The priory became one of the stops on the Way of St. James for pilgrims who, coming from England or elsewhere, via Mont-Saint-Michel, gathered in front of Saint-Malo's relics. The scallop shell, worn by pilgrims on their hats, is carved on the priory church.
Mathrins's proposed flag was presented to the Municipal Council on 19 August 1905. The proposal, however, was not definitively adopted until 1910 under the term of office of Paul Crolard. These arms are, heraldically speaking, completely irreproachable since they appear in the very famous Armorial Général (image). The coat of arms still appears today on the stained glass windows of the priory, which was burnt down during the Revolution, then restored in 1930.
[Ouest-France]

Mayor Martine Craveia-Schütz announced the appointment of a cultural commission tasked of the drawing of a new flag, based on the one which was in use for several decades, with the arms of the priory. These arms can still be observed on the street plates, or in the Parc des Tourelles, for example. For St. Michael's Day, on 4 October, three paratroopers from Saint-Cyr will soar above the vicariate of the Armies at the priory. One of them will fly the old green, white and red flag, while a new version will be created later.
[Le Télégramme, 18 September 2014]

The commission to create the new flag was, probably, never appointed. One third of the members of the Municipal Council having resigned, new elections were organized and a new mayor was elected in 2017. It is likely that the mayors elected in 2017 and then in 2020 did not wish to reopen the can of worms over the flag of Dinard.

Former flag of Dinard - Image by Ivan Sache, 11 September 2006

The flag was often replaced by a simpler vertically divided green-red flag.
[P. Rault. L'histoire des drapeaux bretons, 1998 [rau98]]

Cercle celtique de Dinard

Flag of Cercle Celtique de Dinard - Image by Ivan Sache, 3 August 1998

The flag of Cercle Celtique de Dinarduses is green with a white cross charged with 11 black ermine spots.
[P. Rault. L'histoire des drapeaux bretons, 1998 [rau98]]

Ivan Sache, 3 August 1998

Yacht clubs

Yacht Club de Dinard

Flag and burgee of YCD - Images by Arnaud Leroy and Ivan Sache, respectively, 25 December 2004

YCD (website) was registered on 5 September 1928, with publication on 11 September 1928 in the French official gazette, as Société du Club Nautique de la Rance (CNR). Yachting was already a popular sport in Dinard, but with little formal organization: the two clubs that existed in the 1920s, Société Nautique de Dinard and Voile Dinardaise organized a few regattas every year, mostly involving work boats. The British colony established in the town since the 1860s fostered the incorporation of a yacht club and the organization of official regattas.

Club Nautique de la Rance was founded by a group of "dedicated and competent yachtsmen" led by Count de Gasquet-James. Most of them were fluent people living in Paris and spending summer vacation in Dinard. In 1929, the club, counting 115 members and 52 yachts, organized the first cruise-regatta Dinard-Bréhat-Dinard, enrolling 14 boats. In 1930, CNR revived the cruise-regatta Cowes-Dinard, ran for the last time in 1909, in partnership with the Ocean Racing Club, the Royal Yacht Squadron and the neighboring Société Nautique de la Baie de Saint-Malo. Seven yachts of more than 7 tons registered, but only four competed on 18 July because of the bad weather. However, Yachts et Yachting, the French reference review, stated that "This international yachting event was fully successful, which allows CNR to be ranked as the very first French yacht club".

During the Extraordinary Assembly held in Paris on 18 April 1932, it was decided to erect a club house in a municipal plot granted with the support of the industrialist René Kieffer (1880-1945), owner of the Grand Hôtel de Dinard, Mayor of the town (1930-1932) and member of the club, and to change the club's name to Yacht Club de Dinard (YCD). Designed by the noted architect Yves Hémar (1886-1955, member of the neo-Breton school), the club house is still in use today.
In the late 1930s, YCD membership increased to 500, while the fleets included some 100 vessels. The Second World War stopped the club's development, which resumed after the liberation.

The flag of YCD is white with two blue rectangle triangles placed near the hoist and a red star placed in the white part. The burgee of YCD is a triangular version of the club's flag.

Ivan Sache, 22 January 2019

Club Nautique de Dinard

Flag and burgee of CND - Images by Ivan Sache, 22 January 2019

Club Nautique de Dinard, established in 1860, probably disappeared during the First World War. Its emblems are presented on a color plate (Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping. List of Yacht & Sailing Club Flags, No. 8) dated 1902-1903 (image).
The flag of Club Nautique de Dinard was vertically divided white, 16 black ermine spots on four horizontal rows, and red. The derived burgee was vertically divided white, a black ermine spot, and red.

Ivan Sache, 22 January 2019

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