Ancient Times
Medieval Times
Hospitaller Period
Dun Filippu Borg
XVII Century - Other Aspects
The XVIII Century
Napoleon
The French Blockaded
The British Come To Stay
The Twentieth Century

Ancient Times
Archeological evidence presently available would have it that the Maltese islands were first inhabited by man probably in the late sixth millennium B.C. The beginnings must have been humble, with caves being adapted for dwellings. But by the mid fourth millennium, the first Maltese were already in the full swing of the development of the so-called “temple culture” that gave the world its first free-standing monuments of stone.

It is round about this time also that we come across the first vestiges of the presence of man in the environs of Birkirkara. Megalithic remains in fact are still visible at its very doorstep, by the side of the new road that hems the town in to the north. The last remains of a similar structure, about one kilometre to the east, were still visible up to the early 1980s.

It is generally agreed that the “temple culture” of the Maltese islands came to a rather abrupt end about the middle of the third millennium B.C. with the islands possibly remaining uninhabited for practically the next five hundred years. Early in the second millennium, they were again resettled into from near-by Sicily by a population which brought in a new culture: that associated with bronze age people. What marks out these newcomers from their predecessors is not only their use of metal, but their practice of cremation and subsequent burial in urns, instead of inhumation in rock cut tombs. Another definitely different aspect of their culture is the defensive siting of their settlements, sometimes complemented by defensive works.

Although no traces of any Bronze-age settalement are recorded in or around Birkirkara, one cannot say the same of the presence of “cart-ruts” which are generally, though not necessarily ascribed to this period of Maltese prehistory. The presence of these parallel grooves in the bare rock which are thought to represent ancient trafficways is also attested in the vicinity, to the north of the town.
Ironically, it is the monuments of death that give testimony to the presence of human life and habitation in the environs of Birkirkara during the first millennium B.C. This is in the form of various Phoenician-Punic tombs that have been found within the built-up area of the present town. Remains that would evidence the continuity of habitation of the area during Roman times is scarcer still. But a little way out to the north-east, in an area today incorporated in the rapidly developing town of San Gwann, are the remains of a Roman defensive tower known as Ta’ Cieda.


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Medieval Times
The Ta Cieda site has further interest due to the fact that numerous Muslim burials were found there. In the later middle-ages, on the same site there was the Christian chapel which served as “cappella” or parish church for Birkirkara, surely for some time before 1402, in which year the functions of the parish church had already been transferred to another church dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin. This stood further inland, and to the south of the medieval village.

The same ecclesiastical document that gives us this information also records the name itself of the village for the first time. At that time, the “cappella” or parish did not include only the village itself, but also a sizable territory surrounding it, encompassed between Madliena heights on the north-east coast, to Attard village in the centre of the island and on to Marsamxett Harbour.
Militia records of some twenty years later document the “casale”, or village itself of Birkirkara, as being one of the larger settlements on the island at the time. It was then providing 89 men for the militia service and it is estimated that the population as a whole may have been around five hundred. During the late 1480’s the number of men on the corvee labour force list was up to 134. Presumably the number of the total population had risen accordingly. In each case the number of men for the other hamlets in the parish are not being included.

At About the same time, like the other parishes, the people of Birkirkara could also elect four representatives to the “Consiglio Popolare” or parliament, which assembled at Imdina. Representation was increased to six in certain occasions, especially when a crisis loomed over the horizon.

These representatives also supervised certain aspects of administration at village level, such as taxation, the corvee services, food supplies, their quality and prices and the keeping of law and order. To be eligible for the post of ‘contestabile’, candidates had to be property owners but not priests.

The principal occupation of the Karkari\i, as that of most Maltese then, must have been agriculture - although this can hardly be imagined now, in the face of the present conurbation that has practically gobbled up all the arable land around Birkirkara. They may also have employed themselves in such crafts as pottery-making or basket-weaving - for which in fact, they enjoyed quite a reputation in later times. They could also have had a hand in the production and weaving of cotton, which was one of the main industries in the islands in medieval times.


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Hospitaller Period
It seems that the first half of the sixteenth century, when the Hospitaller and Military Order of St. John had established itself in Malta, the population of Birkirkara and its outlying territory had grown to about 4,000. However even up to the first decades of the Order’s presence in Malta from 1530 on, the islanders still led a precarious existence because of unexpected raids by corsairs or pirates, both Muslim and Christian. It was during one such attack led by Sinan Pasha and Dragut Re’is in 1551 that Birkirkara, among other villages, was devastated.

Another curious incident was that of the winter 1559 - 60. A Christian armada under the command of the Spanish viceroy of Sicily, the duke of Medina Celi, stopped over at Malta on its way to recapture Tripoli from the Turks. While on the island, some contagious illness broke out among the ranks, and the situation became so acute that there soon was no place in the hospital for all those taken ill. But grandmaster La Valette made the people of Birkirkara evacuate their houses in that dreary winter, so that the village would be used as an emergency hospital.

Attacks on the island culminated in the famous Great Siege of 1565. A mighty armada was sent out by the Turkish Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent , to capture Malta. The siege itself protracted from May to September. At first, those people from Birkirkara who were not called to arms, sought refuge in Fort St. Elmo at the tip of the peninsula where Valletta now stands. But grandmaster La Valette thought it better and had them brought over to Birgu, where the Order’s headquarters stood, and they remained thereuntil the end of the hostilities.

The Birkirkara militiamen however, amalgamated with the Qormi contingent under the leadership of the knight Bernard Blanc, at first reported at Birgu, but were soon detailed to help in the defence of Imdina. However, after the fall of St. Elmo and the turning of the Turkish onslaught on Birgu, the Birkirkara militia was again recalled there and continued to take part in its defence until the siege was lifted.

But for the people of Birkirkara this was not to be the end. They still had to suffer another backlash from the retreating Turks, who once again wreaked havoc on their village and burnt it down. To this sad occurence the people of Birkirkara had to suffer once more in a relatively short time, another must be also added: its share of the number of victims on the side of the defenders.

The Ottoman failure to take Malta meant a definite break with old times for the islands, and the heralding of a new age. The knights were now definitely decided to stay and adapt Malta as their new home and state. So much so that they immediately started the building of their new capital city: Valletta. The relative prosperity which this and subsequent undertakings by the knights, in the military field or otherwise, brought to the Maltese, made it so that the islands readily recovered from the ravages of that invasion. As the Turkish threats gradually abated, the Maltese started to build better houses for themselves in the villages, and new churches as well. From the early seventeenth century onwards, these were to become the pride of each village.


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Dun Filippu Borg
Meanwhile some important changes had taken place in Birkirkara itself, just before the close of the sixteenth century. The villages of Attard and Lija were the first in a long series of other parishes to be established out of its territory, as the population in the respective areas continued to grow. But more important still was the appointment of Dun Filippu Borg, himself from Birkirkara, as its parish priest in 1594. That same year, Birkirkara like the rest of the islands, was still in the grip of the severe famine which had followed the 1592 - 93 plague outbreak. The situation was so acute that the Order’s galleys had to force into the Maltese harbours even Christian shipping, to get hold of provisions.

Dun Filippu Borg was born in 1567. He graduated Doctor in canon and civil law - Ius Utroque Doctor - in 1588 and was ordained priest in 1593. Besides the care of the Birkirkara parish, he came to hold other important offices in the diocese: Vicar General for Bishops Gargallo and Cagliaris, Consultant to the Inquisition and also Pro-Inquisitor.

In 1608 he even renounced the nomination made by grandmaster Alof de Wignacourt, to become dean of the Cathedral Chapter. On this occasion, the people of Birkirkara had urged him very much not to renounce the leadership of their parish.
At that time, the principal church of Birkirkara was still the medieval structure which stood on the southern side of the valley, and then consequently, outside the village itself. It must have been the same building that together with the rest of the village had twice suffered the onslaught of Turkish invasions round about the middle of the previous century. In the same year in which Dun Filippu had opted to remain parish priest in Birkirkara, he had started the building of a new larger church in that late renaissance style that flourished in Malta at the time under the patronage of the patronage of the knights of St. John. The financial burden for this enterprie was borne mostly by Dun Filippu himself.

However Dun Filippu was not satisfied, simply with having a beautifully constructed church. In fact it was still under construction when in December 1630 he obtained a bull from the Barberini Pope Urban VIII, that instituted in Birkirkara the first collegiate church in Malta. In this way he had hoped to create an enclave within the islands, which would be free not only of the power of both Order and bishop, but also of that power which the old municipality of the Imdina nobility might still have had.

In the meantime construction work was still in progress on the the new parish church which was dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin. Dun Filippu did not live long enough to see it completed, because he died in 1649 and it was only in 1655 that the building of the dome was commenced. Even so, the various ornate reredoses of the side altars were still being put in place in 1716, just a decade before the present parish church started to be built.

With the building of the new parish church, old St. Mary’s lost all its importance and anything from it that could be re-utilized, even if temporarily, was carried away to St. Helens: vestments, altarpieces and reredoses, or parts thereof, church furniture, the organ and even the clock from the steeple. In just two years after the moving into St. Helen’s, old St. Mary’s was in such a bad state that it escaped profanation only because the visiting bishop was touched at the sight of such beauty going down in ruins.

By the 1780’s, St. Mary’s was languishing in a long irreversible agony. Each subsequent altar profanation was like another amputation that dismembered it bit by bit - yet never stopping the ever encroaching malady. Finally, in 1787, the death sentence was proclaimed by the bishop who declared it inaccessible and had its doors walled in because it was threathening to collapse at any time.
Since then, there has been many a rumour about what might have been the real reason why Birkirkara’s old church was left in disrepair till it collapsed. One version states that whoever might have been interested in its destruction even went so far as to plug the canon-shaped water-spouts from which rain water ran off its roofs, so that the water could seep into the masonry infill and make it fall under its own weight.

In whatever way that destruction may have about, old St. Mary’s was left derelict amid the fields of Imriehel, on the other side of the Birkirkara valley, until in 1856 the shock of an earthquake, with another great crash, brought down its dome which had survived aloft in the crossing, above all the shambles and the ruins. In 1894 the pile of debris was cleared from it. It still had to wait another 75 years for the beginning of the real restoration that was to return it to its pristine condition.


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XVII Century - Other Aspects
Other aspects of life in seventeenth century Birkirkara can only be gleaned from documents that, in one way or another have preserved information on the military aspect. During the course of that century, the “contestabili” that had represented the villages in the Mdina town council had practically lost all their importance, on a political and social level, to the knights who served as captains of the militia and resided in the villages themselves. Through these captains then, the various grandmasters influenced the electorate to choose the contestabili, and since elections were not secret, people were unlikely to oppose the grandmaster’s wishes.

By the beginning of the seventeenth century therefore, besides the parish priest, it was the knight captains of the militia who had any importance in the villages. Many of them were hated and the villagers accused them of increasing the impositions due to them. Other knight captains seem to have been better disposed towards the country folk. One of these was the Catalan knight, Fra Giovanni Alentorn, who was captain of the militia in Birkirkara itself and had an interest in the local antiquities and in the traditions of the peasants.

Other evidence of the military role of Birkirkara at the time are two watch-towers that guarded the approaches to the village, one from the Marsamxett harbour side and the other to the north, from the St. Julians and Gzira side. Birkirkara militiamen had also the duty to keep guard at the coastal towers of Sliema Point, St. Julian’s Bay, St. George’s Bay and at other coastal look-outs in the area, which were still in the Birkirkara limits. In case of an enemy landing, the Birkirkara regiment was detailed to man positions further to the north of the island as well.

As already mentioned, the seventeenth century also saw the consolidation of the position of the village parish priest as a social force. In this vein we find Birkirkara parish priest, Dun Filippo Borg, who, in his other capacity as vicar of the diocese, petitioned the grandmaster to control the abuses of the knight captains of the militia, regarding the levies that were their due from the village folk. In another instance, Grandmaster Lascaris even accused Don Filippo Borg of being behind the disturbances that followed the imposition of taxation that was meant for the building of the Floriana fortifications.

Meanwhile, as the years of the Order’s rule rolled on and the threat of the Muslim gradually abated, the islanders in general and their rulers and more affluent compatriots in particular, settled down to an easier way of life. Not that they were not harassed, from time to time by some undesirable visit, like those of the plague. One such instance was that of 1675, when it carried with it some 11,300 victims in all, Birkirkara’s share being limited to 10l.


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The XVIII Century
By the turn of the eighteenth century, both knights and local gentry were building country houses as a retreat from life in Valletta, especially during the hot summer months. Quite a number of these houses are still to be seen in the older part of the town. Some of them can be recognised by their imposing facade overlooking a relatively narrow street, or from their rich decorative features. Others still have the large gardens in which their original occupants used to while away their time in ease during their vacations - seaside resorts were still a thing of the future then!
The most important undertaking to be taken in hand by the people of Birkirkara during this century was the building of the present parish church of Saint Helen. A hundred years after it was built, the old parish church of Saint Mary was still some distance away from the houses on the periphery of the village, and many used to find it uncomfortable or out of the way to attend church services there. So the people wanted a new and larger church to be erected in the heart of the village.

Work on the site started in 1726 and the building was in a very advanced stage of completion when clergy and parishioners moved into it in 1745. To date the architect is not definitely known, although there has been a whole plethora of attributions. The dome was completed in 1760 and the church was solemnly consecrated in 1782. However it was not until the 1860s that all construction was finished, including also the Chapter Hall.

At first, many church furnishings were brought over from the old church to be used in the new one. Among these there survive some altarpieces in the side-chapels, a wooden pulpit and the revered image of the infant Christ in a gilt urn. But it was not long before new works started to be purposely commissioned. Foremost among these are the altarpieces and other paintings for the larger transceptal and choir areas, and for the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. These include no less than fourteen works that were entrusted to Francesco Vincenzo Zahra, that gifted and prolific Maltese baroque painter, who was then at the height of his artistic activity, and is still regarded as the foremost Maltese artist.

The last decades of the eighteenth century were ones of decline for the Order of Saint John in Malta. At the same time, those were also years of growing dissatisfaction of the Maltese with their aristocratic masters. In fact an abortive attempt led mostly by clerics, which has gone down in local history as: “the insurrection of the priests” was ruthlessly quelled in 1775. A few years later, a francophile conspiracy which included some top ranking members of the Order itself was uncovered, but only the Maltese participants bore the brunt of the ensuing punitive measures. Meanwhile some decrees enacted by the incipient French republic sent the Religion bankrupt, while Napoleon himself gave the coup de grace to its tottering establishment .


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Napoleon
This blow came on the 9th of June 1798 when the French fleet and army under Bonaparte, on their way to the Egyptian campaign stopped at Malta, which the General had long recognised as being indispensable for any power that had aspirations on the Mediterranean. The pretext was to replenish their water supply, but taking exception to the grandmaster’s abiding by the regulations then in force, early the next morning the French poured down on six localities, two of these being the bay of Saint Julian and that of Saint George on the north coast, which were within the limits of Birkirkara territory. Here the troops were under the command of General Vaubois, who after Napoleon’s departure, was to remain on the island as governor and commander of the garrison.

The defence mounted by the Maltese was ineffecive for various reasons. Most of their knight-commanders were French who were in treacherous league with the invaders. They had scarce ammunition and the little they had either did not fit their weapons or else the gunpowder was mixed with ashes or sand to render it innocuous.

The tower and battery at Saint George’s Bay were manned by sixty soldiers of the “cacciatori” or Falconer’s Regiment, under the command of the Chevalier de Preville. They were backed by another 1200 men forming the Birkirkara militia. These had only muskets and three rounds of ammunition. De Preville never ordered his troops to show any resistance, but as soon as the French soldiers disembarked, he went to meet them waving a white scarf. With the first invading troops there were also renegade knights . When the Maltese realized that they had been betrayed, they abandoned their places practically without offering any resistance.

The Vaubois division was now split in two parts. That under general Lannes, went towards Marsamxett harbour and forts Manoel and Tigne that guarded it. There they found loyal knights in command and were held at bay. The other division under the aide-de-camp Marmont had to move quickly inland towards the Wignacourt aqueduct where they were to be met by the forces which landed on the east side of Valletta and moved in from that side. Together, these forces had to block all the approaches to Valletta. So in no time after disembarking, the French troops were in Birkirkara and nearby Balzan and Lija, where they roamed about unchecked, looting what they liked and molesting the womenfolk. Meanwhile a column of French troops under Vaubois himself reached Imdina, the old capital, where the local notables decided to capitulate.

In Valletta and the three cities on the south side of the Grand harbour, the situation soon became chaotic. Some counter action was put up but to no avail. French knights and others known to be francophiles were attacked and even physically eliminated. A deputation of Valletta notables asked grandmaster Hompesch to come to terms with Napoleon, which was eventually done - and so the Order of Saint John was ousted from Malta after nearly 270 years.

Much has been said and written about the events of Napoleon’s brief stay on the island and what happened during the three months of French administration. What interests us most here is the order which divided the islands into cantons, each governed by a municipal body of five members. Each canton was to have a Magistrate appointed by the French Commisioner subject to the approval of the General in command of the troops in Malta. The demarcations of these municipalities were to be established by the new government commission.

In other decrees, Bonaparte declared that all the inhabitants of Malta were to have equal rights, any differentiation was to be only due to the personal merits or attachment to the French Republic. All were obliged to wear the tricolor cockade and all inhabitants of Malta and Gozo were to be disarmed. He suppressed certain religious foundations, which could have meant also the suppression of the Birkirkara collegiate, and introduced fiscal and educational reforms. These last, while reducing the Malta university to a provincial central school, also meant to establish fifteen primary schools in the islands.

On hindsight, one may say that it could have been with some sense of foreboding that, in one of his very last orders prior to his departure, Napoleon ordered that national property to the value of 300,000 francs was to be sold for the purpose of providing provisions in the event of a siege. For as events turned out to be, this was not late in happening. This was both because of certain measures the French administration of the island was taking, especially those aimed at getting hold of much-needed financing, and also the arrival of the news of the French reversal at the Battle of the Nile.


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The French Blockaded
The proposed selling of articles belonging to the Carmelite church at Imdina - attached to one of the convents which Bonaparte’s edicts had suppressed - was only the final spark which was needed to light the flame of rebellion on that fateful second of September 1798.

On the afternoon of that day, Vincenzo Borg, a well to do cotton dealer from Birkirkara where he was held in high esteem by the locals, happened to be in Rabat. He sensed that this was not just a skirmish between pro- and anti- French sympathizers like that which had broken out at Attard on the previous “quatorze juillet”, when the Birkirkara municipal government had to ask for armed reinforcements to re-establish order there. He preceived that if the Maltese as a whole did not rise up to arms and take the necessary steps, they would be massacred by the French troops in Valletta.

Borg hastened to raise the alarm first at Attard and on to Birkirkara, where he was chosen to be the leader. That night he led a raid on the tower at Saint George’s bay and the nearby entrenchment. Some French soldiers were killed, the others fled to Fort Tigne while the insurgents took three cannon they found there and posted one overlooking Marsamxett harbour and Fort Manoel, the other at }amrun to contain any sortie from Floriana and Valletta and the third at Kordin, which overlooked the inner reaches of Grand harbour. So began the two-year blockade of the French within the harbour fortifications. Ironically, the Maltese were fighting their “liberators” and attacking the very bastions that had been built for their own defence.

In the first days, all the able-bodied men from the villages rose to take up some position, usually that nearest to the place where they lived, to keep the French pinned down in the cities. In fact, Vincenzo Borg at first had some l600 men at his disposal. These were from Birkirkara itself and from some nearby villages. It was not long before he found himself responsible for all the front along Marsamxett harbour and the rest of the northern coast. He built a series of batteries and defence lines to seal off the French from Marsamxett side and brought over artillery for the purpose from coastal defences as far as Comino.

As time wore on, it was realized that it was not possible to keep all the men away from their work, to gain a living for their families, and especially the farmers, who could help in the production of much needed victuals. So the Assembly, later styled Congress, of Maltese leaders, summoned on the initiative of Birkirkara Provost Peter Paul Micallef among others, issued regulations how the entrenchments were to be manned. Those on the Birkirkara side were to be manned daily by a contingent of 450 from Birkirkara and another eighty from Mosta.

In the first two months, the French tried a number of sorties from various points, but were always repulsed. The Birkirkara troops were engaged in a number of these skirmishes. The first one took place at Imriehel, when, together with other insurgents from Qormi, they intercepted the troop that was meant to relieve the Mdina garrison when news of the revolt there had reached Vaubois in Valletta.

Another sortie by boats at Pieta’ in Marsamxett harbour was meant to take Birkirkara by surprise. But this attempt too misfired. At least on another two occasions the French tried to attack the positions held by the Birkirkara battalion from Fort Manoel. But even here they failed. After these failures and others on the Cottonera side, the French stuck to their positions inside the harbour area defence lines.

A severe blow was dealt to the Maltese patriots when the plot to take the French by surprise failed. This was being done in concert with some Maltese that were still in Valletta.When it misfired, a contingent from Birkirkara that had rowed across Marsamxett harbour were waiting in the quarantine stores next to the gate which led to the city, for the signal which never came. They were savagely set upon by the French. Those that managed took to the boats or braved the cold January sea to swim across. Many were shot on the spot. Others who hid in the whereabouts were taken prisoner and later faced the firing squad with those from Valletta who had taken part in the plot.

Meanwhile, the war was causing other problems as well: the besiegers had few arms and munitions. Food was soon becoming scarce and illness set in among ranks and population. To make matters worse, in order to be able to prolong their resitstance to the siege, the French who had the bulk of provisions in the granaries inside the fortifications, started to send out hundreds of Maltese from the cities, thus swelling the numbers of those who had to be fed by the insurgents’ meagre provisions.

The population of Birkirkara alone, which then was about six thousand, doubled with the influx of such refugees. Among these, and by other means, the French were even sending out ‘agents’ of their own to sow dissention among the Maltese insurgents. Birkirkara also had to cope with the quartering of foreign troops that came to help in the blockade. First a division of British soldiers was provisionally settled in the village and then some 900 Neapolitan soldiers.


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The British Come To Stay
Exactly two years after the start of hostilities, the French resolved to capitulate, but this was left in the hands of the British, no Maltese representative was allowed to participate or sign the capitulation document. Furthermore the French were allowed to leave Valletta with full military honours, while the Maltese who had determinedely blockaded them for the whole duration of the hostilities, to their great chagrin, were constrained to disarm before entering Valletta. Thus for the next 164 years, Malta became a British possession, confirmed by the Treaty of Paris in 1814 after Napoleon’s ultimate downfall.

As the nineteenth century progressed, Birkirkara fared like the rest of Malta, according to the whim and exigencies of British imperial policy. However, Maltese patriots soon began to clamour for those rights which the British had pledged to respect, especially those for local government, rights of which they had been systematically divested since Malta was granted to the hospitallers. But British policy that the military authority should supersede the civil power whenever the security of the island appeared to demand it, while ignoring the pleas of local political leaders, made the economy dependent on military expenditure, with an artificial cycle having times of war making an upswing and peace recording a downswing.

A sort of very limited local administration was however allowed during the nineteenth century, at times having single villages and at times districts, with mayors exercising powers and having responsibilities which are now practically vested in the police force. During this period Birkirkara was the seat of one such municipalities.

The dependence of the local economy on that of the British base made it such that the harbour area became more than ever the hub of industrial activity. When large-scale infrastructural projects were undertaken, more and more people began to gravitate to the area, leaving the countryside where labour in the fields was hard to find and badly paid.

So by the turn of the twentieth century, the population of Birkirkara was increasing by the influx of people from villages farther from Valletta, and whose permanent livelihood was no longer eked out of the fields around their native village, but from employment connected with the British base. This trend gradually also spelt the end of traditional industries like the growing and manufacture of cotton, pottery and straw-works.

Although the nineteenth century generally was not a prosperous one, the people of Birkirkara still managed to complete the building of the parish church by 1866 and to endow it internally with various noteworthy furnishings. These include the silver high-altar antependium, the work of local silversmiths Saverio and Roberto Cannataci, to the design of Nazarener artist Giuseppe Hyzler in 1844; the processional statues of St. Joseph (1826) and St. Helen (1837) in polychrome wood; the fine gilt and embroidered canopy (1898) and various paintings and marble works. All these besides the rebuliding of most of the smaller churches in the town. It was also during this century that the annual ‘festa’, like that in other towns and villages, started to assume its present form with street decorations and band marches.

On the social level, Birkirkara had its first government primary school in 1842. By the latter half of the century, various modern infrastructural services like piped water supply and sewage works, were introduced. By 1857, Birkirkara people could make use of the new transport service by ‘omnibus’ which ran between Valletta and Lija. From 1883, the Malta railway operating between Valletta and Imdina passed right by the southern side of the town, where a railway station was to be found - this has now been turned into a public garden.

In 1865 Birkirkara set up one of Malta’s earliest band clubs, which since 1899 has become known as the Duke of Connaught’s Own. The last fifteen years of that century also saw the establishment of some religious orders in the town. Among these were the Jesuits who set up St. Aloysius College, which has become one of the foremost private educational establishments in the island, and also the Discalced Carmelites.

One last word should be said about the dismemberment of territory that previously formed part of the Birkirkara parish, especially on the seaward side. Here new residential areas came to be formed by people overspilling from Valletta or coming from other inland localities. In a relatively short time the new towns of Sliema, St. Julians, Gzira , Msida and Hamrun were formed and acquired autonomous status. Others were to follow in the next century, namely St. Vennera, San Gwann and l-Ibra[.


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The Twentieth Century
At the turn of the twentieth century the population of Birkirkara had risen over the eight thousand figure. Gradually it continued to its image of a rural village, becoming more and more a residential area for those who found employment in the capital or the immediate port area - of these the number of Karkari\i themselves was always on the increase. They were abandoning the ancient terraced fields and the old trades by which they had lived up till then, to take up employment in state departments and corporations or private firms and industries. This increased during the sixties when two industrial estates were established in its immediate outskirts, which, besides other types of development, swallowed up a large part of the arable land then still available.
In the opening decades of this century, the demographic growth of Birkirkara was also made possible by the introduction of new means of transport which made of it a convenient residential area just on the edges of the port-industries zone. To the railway service already in operation the tramway was introduced in 1903. But by 1931 both these services succumbed to the bus service which started in the twenties, and has remained since the principal means of public transport on the islands.

New, regularly layed out ,residential areas projecting out of the old village core began to take shape. The first part of this expansion materialized during the inter-war years along the new Mannarino Road axis to its south-east and Brared Street to its West. Later, from the sixties on, urban development continued to make Birkirkara about four times the size it was in the beginning of the century, housing a population of about twenty two thousand.

In spite of this, however, Birkirkara too had its share of people who emigrated when prospects in Malta were bleak, after both world wars. On the other hand, the last conflict bought into Birkirkara a considerable number of refugees from the blitzed port area, swelling the population,according to some estimates to as much as forty or fifty thousand. Some of these then, settled permanently.
It was not only civilians who sought refuge in Birkirkara during that critical period, but also various government and other administrative establishments, so that during those years it was considered as Malta’s emergency capital. Its churches also became the safe repositories for various cult and valuable objects from the hard hit Cottonera region. In the same war, Birkirkara also had its share of fatalities, though it was generally considered to be a safe area.

Demographic growth brought with it also new needs and opportunities, besides urban sprawl and industrialization. Among the first we find that of educational facilities for the ever increasing number of students of all ages. Although the provision of education is a national responsibility, in Birkirkara there are now seven educational institutions, statal or private, primary, secondary and post secondary level, while the University of Malta is just by on the outskirts.

In the latter half of the twentieth century there also appeared organised sporting clubs, although new trends in entertainment made it loose all its theatres and the greater part of its bars and cafes. Meanwhile the principal thoroughfares became more and more a busy shopping centre and the twice-weekly open market has become one of the most popular on the island.

The social changes that took place during the current century are also reflected in the political outlook of the Birkirkara residents, as expressed through their votes in the parliamentary elections since 1921, when self-government was granted by the British. In the first three elections, the majority of votes from the Birkirkara district went to the then Constitutional Party. This party was manifestly pro-British and imperialist, rallying the support of those in the employ of the civil and military services, besides a sizable number of the labour class, at a time when the present Labour Party was still incipient.

Before World War II it was only in the 1932 elections that the Birkirkara district gave the majority of votes to the Nationalist Party, then considered pro-Italian in its anti-imperialist stand, and mostly supported by the upper-class, the professions and the clergy. After the war and the waning of the Constitutional Party, the majority of votes from the Birkirkara district for five consecutive elections between 1947 and 1955 went to the Labour Party, which practically took over from the Constitutionals.

From 1962 to 1992, in all seven elections that took place, the majority from the same district went to the Nationalist Party, which had now become one of Christian Democratic outlook with a European commitment.

But before the granting of self-government, when suffrage was still very limited and the parties of the time were still struggling over such matters as the “language question” and bent on obtaining a more liberal consitiution, it seems that in Birkirkara there was a consistent following of social-reformer Manwel Dimech and his society or pressure-group. This can be assumed from the reaction shown by the parishioners when the Archbishop’s pastoral letter of 1911 condemning Dimech and his society was read in the churches. In Birkirkara it was received with much grumbling and whistling and many walked out of the church.

But in spite of this and other instances of disagreement, the church continued to be a leading source of inspiration in many ways, much as in the previous three or four centuries. Religious orders continued to be established in Birkirkara, especially in the newly developed outer areas, so that now there are some ten communities contributing in pastoral, educational and social work. This also brought about the building of necessary structures, not only convents and churches, but also schools and social centres.

The first decades of the twentieth century were also a time of considerable activity in the field of the arts, especially church decoration. In Saint Helen’s various artistic furnishings in precious metals and rich fabrics were commissioned to adorn the church, especially in time of festivities. The most important undertaking however was that of the decoration of its vaults and dome with a cycle of frescoes illustrating salient episodes in the life of the saint and the triumph of the Cross, culminating in that of the Last Judgement. Roman painter Virginio Monti was commissioned and the works were finished in 1910.

1910 was also a memorable year for the people of Birkirkara because of the solemn crowning of the effigy of the Madonna, reverred in the time-hallowed sanctuary known as “Tal-}erba”. In its present form this sanctuary dates to the eigthteenth century, as is indicated by its’ lavish rococo decoration finely carved in the local stone , especially in the inner chapel. At the time it reached only up to the present nave, but in the 1920s it was enlarged with the constuction of transepts and choir, with a dome over the crossing. In the adjacent hall now are housed the numerous surviving ex-voto paintings which, though not of special artistic value, are however in many ways a precious document of the times of their donation.

In 1919 a second band club by the name of St. Helen was set up in Birkirkara, while the third one, St. Anthony, was established later in the eighties. In the twenties also, a gifted artist emerged in Birkirkara in the person of Joseph Briffa. To him was entrusted the decoration of two of the chapels in the collegiate church. In that of the Blessed Sacrament, he has left us a colourful depiction of the grand procession that closed the International Eucharistic Congress held in Malta in 1913, progressing out of old Kingsgate in Valletta. Briffa was later also commisioned to decorate the vaults of Tal-Herba sanctuary and the church of Saint Paul both in Birkirkara, besides decorating other churches in both islands.

In 1931 the Karkari\i saw the realisation of another dream that had been at the back of their mind for quite some decades. This took the shape of a large new bell for their church. It was cast in the Barigozzi foundries at Milan and weighs around eight tonnes. It is still the largest among the church bells on the island.

The thirties however had also sad events in store for Birkirkara. The first one occurred in 1935 after the final decision of a local ecclesiastic regional council, suppressing certain prerogatives of the Birkirkara collegiate. As a consequence, it was decided that no external festivities were to be celebrated until a solution was found to this impasse. The second one was World War II, with which we have already dealt above. By the end of the war, a solution was still not in sight for the impasse which now neared the decade. At one stage in January 1949, matters precipitated such, that some locals blocked the church doors with stones as a protest and in the vindication of the contested prerogatives. But in 1950 the church of Saint Helen was elevated to the rank of Basilica and normality was resumed.

By the mid nineteen-sixties, Birkirkara was fast outgrowing its pre-World War II extent. It was the urban limits of the town itself now that on the ecclesiastic level, started being divided into different parishes as the population figure steadily rose to twenty two thousand. Other large new churches were built, although not all obtaining parish status. Interesting among these on the architectural level is that of the Conventual Friars dedicated to Saint Francis . It is built in the neo-romanesque style, utilising local limestone. Another is the modern ferro-concrete rotunda of the Discalced Carmelites, dedicated to Saint Theresa.

Urban expansion to the south also prompted the rehabilitation and restoration of the renaissance old church of the Assumption which had been left derelict and ruined for the previous two centuries. Work started in 1969 and now the whole church is back in use for worship, although it still lacks the proper dome closing and there’s much to be seen to on the outside, especially the topmost structures.

Meanwhile in 1964 Malta obtained independence from the British and ten years later it was declared a republic. On this last occasion, it was one of Birkirkara’s sons that was voted in as Malta’s first President in the person of Sir Anthony Mamo. At present, also from Birkirkara are the Prime Minister and leader of the Nationalist Party, Dr. Eddie Fenech Adami and the Leader of the Opposition and of the Malta Labour Party, Dr. Alfred Sant.

Another important event for Birkirkara, as for the other Maltese towns and villages, came in 1994 with the introduction of local administration and the setting up of local councils. The Birkirkara local council is made up of thirteen members, including the Mayor and is the largest of such councils in Malta.


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