Interesting Facts
- Il-Vittorja simply means 'the Victory' in Maltese.
- Valletta, Malta's capital, was founded in 1566, the year after the Great Siege, specifically to strengthen the island's defenses.
Feast of Our Lady of Victories
🇲🇹 Malta
- Public Holiday
- Countrywide
- Fixed date
Overview
Known in Malta as Il-Vittorja, the Feast of Our Lady of Victories is a national public holiday observed every September 8. It combines a Catholic feast honoring the Virgin Mary with the anniversary of the end of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, one of the most celebrated events in Maltese history.
What It Is
Schools, government offices, and most businesses close across Malta for the public holiday. Regattas are traditionally held in Marsamxett Harbour and the Grand Harbour, and church parishes, especially in Valletta and Senglea, hold Masses and processions honoring Our Lady of Victories. Fireworks and band marches mark the evening in towns with strong ties to the day's military history.
Why It Matters
The date commemorates the lifting of the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, when the Knights of St John and the Maltese population withstood a prolonged Ottoman assault, a victory widely credited in local tradition to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, giving her the title Our Lady of Victories. Maltese tradition also links the same date to two later military anniversaries: the surrender of Napoleon's French garrison in 1800 and the end of the Axis siege of Malta in the Second World War in 1943, making September 8 a rare date associated with three separate historical deliverances.
Why This Holiday Endures
The holiday endures because the Great Siege remains a defining episode in Maltese national memory, still marked today with harbor regattas that echo celebrations held centuries earlier. Layering the twentieth-century wartime deliverance onto the same date has kept the holiday's meaning current for modern generations, rather than confined to sixteenth-century history alone.
Did You Know?
The regattas held in Malta's harbors on Il-Vittorja are said to descend from celebrations that broke out spontaneously when the Ottoman fleet withdrew in 1565.
Holiday in Context
Il-Vittorja falls on the same date as the Christian feast of the Nativity of Mary observed elsewhere in Catholic Europe, but in Malta the day carries an additional military and civic dimension unique to the island's history. It stands alongside other patriotic anniversaries, such as Independence Day in September and Freedom Day in March, as one of several dates Malta continues to commemorate.
Countries Celebrating
1 country
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