The Faroese Flag Flotilla 2019

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1. 100 years ago this year, a unique event occurred in Copenhagen which would take its place in the history of the Faroe Islands. On 2 June 1919, the Faroese flag, known fondly since as Merkið (“the Ensign”) in Faroese, was displayed in public for the first time. This happened at Nordmandsdalen, in the gardens of the Fredensborg castle to the north of Copenhagen.

2. The Faroese national flag was designed by Faroese students in Copenhagen, but it was law student Jens Oliver Lisberg who has in particular been credited with its creation, as he had the orig-inal version sewn in Copenhagen. This now hangs on display in the church in Jens Oliver Lisberg’s home village of Famjin, on the island of Suðuroy.

3. The Faroese Flag Flotilla will be marking the centenary of the Faroese national flag as it visits five towns in Denmark in late May and early June 2019, bringing a taste of Faroese history, culture and enterprise to Denmark, and giving the Danish public a chance to learn more about the Faroe Islands, one of the smallest but most dynamic of the Nordic nations.

4. The seven vessels in the Flotilla represent in their own ways important milestones in Faroese history. The two oldest ones, Johanna and West-ward Ho, are wooden smacks built in England in 1884 and sold to the Faroe Islands in the 1890’s. Smacks transformed the Faroe Islands from a traditional peasant society based on farming to a modern commercial fisheries-based economy. In their heyday, there were as many as 130 smacks in the burgeoning Faroese fishing industry. Today, only Johanna and Westward Ho survive intact as proud reminders of Faroese seafaring heritage.

5. The smacks provided the impetus for the subse-quent development of the Faroese fishing indus-try through to the end of the Second World War

in 1945. Most of the fisheries took place off Ice-land from early spring and well into the autumn. The war years posed particular challenges. Many smacks sailed iced fish from Iceland to the British market. This was a lucrative trade, but it was also very dangerous sailing through enemy-patrolled waters, and the Faroe Islands lost many people to the war during these years.

6. Motorized deck boats and other Faroese vessels were the first to sail under the Faroese flag. The first Faroese ship to sail with the Faroese flag was no doubt the smack Neptun, owned and run by Óla Jákup í Skálum from Vestmanna. That was in 1923, and he sailed under the Faroese flag until he was lost at sea in 1934. Many other skippers chose to do the same, despite being forbidden by the authorities to use “the Ensign”.

7. When Denmark was occupied by the Germans in 1940, British troops were stationed in the Faroe Islands. Faroese ships could therefore no longer sail under the Danish flag. The British authorities ordered Faroese ships to fly the Faroese flag, and it was officially designated by the British on 25 April 1940 as the maritime ensign of the Faroe Islands during the war. In the Home Rule Act of 1 April 1948, it was at last legally recognized as the national flag of the Faroe Islands. Faroese Flag Day on 25 April is now a national celebration and public holiday.

The ships taking part in the Faroese Flag Flotilla 2019 to Denmark are: Johanna, Westward Ho, Dragin, Thors havn, Norðlýsið, Heimdal and Norðan.

Sources: Niels Juel Arge, Merkið, flaggsøgan (1980); Wikipedia.