1551 | Birkirkara was devastated in the attack by Torghut Rais and Sinan Pasha.
1560 | By order of Grandmaster De Valette all houses in Birkirkara were vacated and used as a hospital for soldiers from an armada that passed by Malta before launching an attack on Tripoli
1565 | May to September – The Great Siege of Malta by an Ottoman force sent by the Turkish Sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent. Birkirkara is once more devastated and resettlement takes some years.
1575 | Pastoral Visit by Mgr Pietro Dusina. Churches and houses still not recovered from the devastation caused during the Great Siege.
1575 | Ħ’Attard is the first village from the Birkirkara parish territory that is given autonomous parish status.
1594 | Don Filippo Borg appointed parish priest. Ħal Lija obtains autonomous parish status. Early seventeenth century – Don Filppo Borg and his parishioners embark on the building of a new parish church on the same site of the older one, today known as the Old Church or the Parish Church of Saint Mary.
