Erquy (Municipality, Côtes-d'Armor, France)

Last modified: 2004-01-17 by ivan sache
Keywords: cotes-d'armor | erquy |
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• Presentation of Erquy
• Description of the municipal flag
• Club de Voile d'Erquy

See also:

• France
• Côte-d'Armor (Department, France)

Presentation of Erquy

Erquy is a small sea resort and fishing port (especially involved in scallop fishing as other ports in the St. Brieuc Bay) of ca. 3,500 inhabitants, located on the Côte d'Emeraude (Emerald Coast).
Its inhabitants are called Reginéens, because Erquy was supposed, probably wrongly, to have been built on the site of the Gallo-Roman city of Reginea.

In Erquy can be seen a very rare example of preserved cannonball kiln. Such kilns were parts of the defence system established by Vauban on the French coasts. The kiln allowed to heat the cannonballs before firing the cannon, so that the cannonballs could set fire to the English vessels. Interestingly, the memory of such heated cannonballs has been preserved in the widely used expression tirer à boulets rouges sur quelqu'un, litt. 'firing someone with red cannonballs' (red because of their temperature), which could be translated (according to Robert-Collins lexicon) as 'to lay into somebody tooth and nail'.

Ivan Sache, 16 June 1998

Description of the municipal flag

The municipal flag of Erquy is shown in P. Rault's book [rau98]. It is made of a white field charged with the municipal arms:

Vert a mermaid or a chief of ermine

Ivan Sache, 16 June 1998

Club de Voile d'Erquy

by Ivan Sache

The Club de Voile d'Erquy has a simple burgee, red with two black triangles along the hoist and a white fimbriation between the black and red parts. A white E letter is placed in the upper triangle.

Source: CVE website

Ivan Sache, 13 May 2001