Flowers at the Great Siege: How Valletta’s Quietest Victory Day Ritual Unites Malta

Valletta’s morning sun had barely cleared the bastions when the first carnations appeared at the foot of the Great Siege Monument. By 9 a.m. the bronze figures of Faith, Fortitude and Civilisation were swimming in a tide of red and white—some blooms still dewy from florists in Hamrun, others wrapped in the plastic sleeves that mean “I bought these on the walk here because this matters to me.” Victory Day, once a dusty date in a history book, has become Malta’s most intimate national ritual: no speeches blaring, no tickets required, just flowers and memory.

The monument, carved in 1927 to honour the 1565 siege that checked Ottoman expansion, is no longer only a tribute to knights in ruffs. On 8 September it doubles as the island’s collective diary. Grandmothers lay iris for fathers who served in the WWII convoys that kept Malta fed; teenagers nestle paper poppies beside them for friends currently on peace-keeping missions. Someone always leaves a single sunflower for the migrant souls lost at sea—an unofficial footnote that speaks volumes about a country whose borders have always been fluid.

“Two years ago I brought my son for the first time,” says Ramona Cassar, 38, a Sliema bank clerk balancing a bouquet of wild fennel—l-imħebbħa—picked on the family’s Gozo plot. “He asked why we lay flowers for a war we didn’t live through. I told him it’s not about the knights, it’s about choosing to show up.” Cassar’s grandfather manned an anti-aircraft gun on the Santa Margherita Lines during the 1940 blitz; her gesture links 1565, 1943 and 2024 in one quiet act.

Local context runs deeper than the textbooks let on. Because 8 September also celebrates the birth of the Virgin Mary—Il-Bambina—it fuses civic and sacred time. After laying flowers, many slip into the nearby Anglican cathedral for a quick hymn, then sprint to the ferry for the traditional regatta where Cospicua and Birgu boats slice Grand Harbour in half. In one morning you can mourn, pray and cheer; only Malta parcels history, religion and festa into a three-hour window.

The florist lobby loves it. “We start prepping in mid-August,” laughs Mark Psaila, whose family stall outside the Upper Barrakka does 40% of its annual trade this week. “Red carnations sell out first—cheap, Maltese-grown, last all day in the heat.” He confesses a brisk side-line in blue cornflowers for Brits who want to remember Operation Pedestal, the 1942 convoy codenamed “Santa Margherita” by starving Maltese. Tourism operators have clocked on too: AirBnB hosts now leave little maps marking the monument and suggesting 7.30 a.m. as the “authentic” time to watch locals arrive before the cruise-ship crowds.

But the day’s power lies in its resistance to packaging. No committee polices what can be laid; no hashtag is pushed. When someone left 32 miniature EU flags last year—one for each European victim of the 2015 Paris attacks—it sparked debate on Facebook, yet the flags stayed, soggy but visible, for days. The monument becomes a palimpsest: layer upon layer of private grief and public joy, watered by September sun and overnight drizzle.

By noon the Valletta cleaning crew sweep the stones, stuffing stems into biodegradable bags that will be composted at the Sant’Antnin plant and returned, as soil, to the city’s planters next spring. The bronze knights stand bare again, but they carry an invisible cargo: every story whispered while children wriggled, every promise that “next year we’ll come earlier.”

Victory Day ends with fireworks over Floriana, yet its quietest moment—flowers against marble—lingers longer than any rocket. In a country racing to build the next high-rise, the pause is revolutionary. We lay blooms not because the past was better, but because remembering together is the only way we consent to share a future that still fits on a small limestone island.