A copy of Fr Lawrence E. Attard’s sixth contribution to the history of Maltese migration, Beyond Our Shores – A Panorama of Maltese Migration, has been presented to Archbishop Mgr Paul Cremona OP.

Fr Attard’s first book was published in 1983, and over the last 20 years he has been acknowledged as an authority on the subject. Eventually, stocks of the first three books ran out, and rather than publish a new edition, the author has produced this latest book. His intention was to go over what he had written previously and introduce changes that seem appropriate after all these years. Fr Attard also felt that this offered him an opportunity to put in print the considerable amount of historical material that he has amassed.

Further research has pushed back the date of Beyond Our Shores to the 16th century, when the Knights of Malta were still controlling the lives of their Maltese subjects. It was during this period that fledgling colonies of Maltese entrepreneurs were found along the shores of the Christian lands of the Western Mediterranean.

This area includes the islands of Sicily and Corsica and the coasts of Western Italy, the South of France, the Eastern seaboard of Spain and out into the Atlantic to the great maritime city of Lisbon. It was from cities such as Marseille, Barcelona, Valencia and Lisbon that Maltese traders received their information about the New World and the vast possessions of Portugal and Spain. This was at as time when some of the rulers in Malta came precisely from those countries.

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