Is there much that man does not find excuses to celebrate? Anything joyous, remarkable, fortunate, jubilant is, and has always been, good reason to encroach on the boredom of routine and gain hearty political mileage – some panem and plenty of circenses.

An important military parade passing, unusually, through Old Bakery Street, Valletta, in the 1910s.

From this feature are excluded communal events and festivities already covered, like carnivals, visits by royalty and funerals. Religious festivities which, at least up to relatively recently, accounted for the lion’s share of popular pageantry, may form the subject matter of some future feature.

Included, but very summarily, just to give a foretaste, are military parades, political triumphalism and the inevitable rejoicings following sports’ successes. These have in common the spontaneous participation of crowds of fans, well-wishers or simply curious, often choreographed with loud music, illuminations, decorations and fireworks, worthy though unwitting successors of the bacchanalia and saturnalia of Roman times. The kukkanja, the ġostra, the Imnarja (luminaria) the qarċilla and the parata, in essence, represented scaled-down popular versions of bon-ton entertainment, to satisfy public craving for what today lumps under the name of partying.

Political leaders carried shoulder high during the 1932 election campaign. Photo: Giuseppe Cassar, Ħamrun

A pro-Mintoff demonstration by the Brigata Laburista in the 1950s.

Popular celebrations of the 1932 electoral result. Photo: Giuseppe Cassar, Ħamrun

Fans celebrating Floriana Football Club’s win over R.G.A. (Royal Garrison Artillery) on May 7, 1921. All images from the author’s collection

A stop in front of the Mosta rotunda during a day’s outing by teachers in government primary schools in the 1920s.

Luqa village on a festa day in the 1920s. Photo: Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar

Maltese swimmer Turu Rizzo being feted in Grand Harbour at the end of one of his attempts to break the world’s sea endurance record in the 1920s. Photo: Result Studio, Sliema

We know that, at the times of the Order, almost everything turned into an excuse to celebrate publicly on a grand scale – races of quadrupeds, musical concerts, crowds, decorated floats, fountains of free-flowing wine, jousts and tournaments, banqueting, declamations of flattering verse, revelry, masks, dancing, ritual thanksgivings and fireworks.

The election of new grand masters or popes, coronations of Catholic monarchs, weddings of kings, births of heirs to the throne, an armistice, a successful naval encounter and the return of triumphant vessels, visits by foreign ambassadors, the consecration of a new church, the end of a pestilence, arrivals from Rome of important relics or some korpu sant – even public executions of criminals – all turned into admirable reasons for communal celebration or jubilation.

The huge popular celebration in Main Guard Square on the proclamation of the first self-government constitution in1921. Photo: Chritien & Co.

Beach celebrations, mixed military and civilians, late 1920s. Photo: Richard Ellis

Town and country folks enjoying the Mnarja feast in Buskett, 1920s. Photo: Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar

Celebrating Christmas in one of Malta’s military hospitals during World War I.