Culture · 4 min read · 6 August 2026
Hip hip hooray for a patch of ground
Every year on King's Day the Netherlands sings the Wilhelmus, and afterwards Vlieland sings its own anthem. It was written by a schoolteacher from Franeker.
The Vlielands Volkslied is sung on island occasions. Alongside the Wilhelmus, Vlieland thus has its own anthem.
A schoolteacher from the mainland
The Vlielands Volkslied was written by Gerrit Donia — and he was no Vlielander. He was born in Franeker in 1876 and came to the island in 1902 as a schoolteacher, at a time when tourism here hardly existed and around seven hundred people lived here.
Donia stayed. Until late 1935, he taught at the municipal primary school. From 1931, he was also an alderman, an office he held until his death in December 1948. Nearly half a century on an island where everyone knows one another — that turns an outsider into a Vlielander.
An anthem without boastfulness
His lyrics say something you will not find in any tourist brochure. The song begins with a patch of ground, small in circumference, and in the same breath calls it of little value. Further on, it mentions that others sometimes mock it. That is a remarkable choice for an anthem: no boastfulness, but the acknowledgement that in the eyes of the world this island amounts to very little — followed by the statement that the islanders hold it dear nonetheless.
The second verse is about children playing undisturbed in the dunes, and about what happens when fate carries you away to east, west, south, or north. That is the essence of this song and of this island: it was written for people who depart. On an island where generations went to sea and young people moved to the mainland, an anthem is not a party song, but an anchor.
And then the chorus, calling out hip hip hooray three times for an island in the middle of the sea. Written down, it looks clumsy. Sung, by a hundred people at once on the Dorpsstraat, it works.
Where you hear it
In January 2013, Nils Koster of the Vlieland duo Drijfhout presented a performance of the anthem during a council meeting, as a gift to the population. It has been on the municipality's website ever since, where it can be heard.
The song is in the repertoire of the Vlielander Zeemanskoor. For performances, the current programme of the occasion applies.
De onderwerpen van dit verhaal komen uit het archief van vlieland-info.nl, dat H.P. de Nijs ruim twintig jaar heeft bijgehouden. Zijn fotoarchief van Vlieland is te zien op Flickr.
Bronnen
vlieland.net, gemeente Vlieland (wapen, vlag en volkslied), Vlielander Zeemanskoor, biografische gegevens over Gerrit Donia via Vakantieland Nederland.
Laatst bijgewerkt: 13 oktober 2026
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