Photo: From left: Ms Maria Attard, Ms Patricia Ebejer, Mr Michael Farrugia and Prof. Dominic Fenech
The Department of History at UM this year nominated Patricia Ebejer and Maria Attard as joint winners of the Farsons Foundation Prize for best History Honours thesis. Patricia Ebejer ran with a social history of her home village: ‘A Study in local History since 1800: Mgarr.’ Maria Attard wrote about social history under the Knights, with ‘Petitions to the Grand Master: the Suppliche Documents as a Major Source for Social History on Hospitaller Malta.’
For Patricia and Maria History is a discipline to engage with, analytically and critically, something they did not just learn, but learned from. Maria recalls ‘Ever since I can remember,I always felt fascinated with anything related to culture’. History for her is the foundation of a wide range of cultural interests, including museums, exhibitions, art, music, travel and film in all its aspects. Patricia is a firm believer in the adage mens sana in corpore sano. ‘I believe that sports and academia go hand in hand,’ she maintains. A keen footballer, she aspires to play professionally and internationally.
The Farsons Foundation Prize was set up in February 2014. The Award is funded by Farsons for the eighth year running. The Prize was presented by Mr Michael Farrugia, Director at Simonds Farsons Cisk and Trustee on the Board of The Farsons Foundation. Mr Farrugia congratulated Ms Attard and Ms Ebejer for their performance. Himself a History graduate from Edinburgh University, he expressed his hope that the Prize would continue to act as an incentive for students to aim for excellence in whatever they did.
Professor Dominic Fenech, the Head of the History Department, added his congratulations, mentioning that the students excelled among a group of particularly capable peers. He thanked once again the Foundation for its sustained support, recalling that the association of the History Department with Farsons went back to the 1970s, when a similar prize used to be awarded.
The presentation took place on January 26, 2022 at the Farsons Administration Building at Mriehel.
