Mourners pack St Julian’s church to pay last farewell to Robert Arrigo

The final farewell to Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo took place at the St Julian’s parish church, where the coffin of the beloved former Sliema Wanderers FC president and hotelier was greeted by mass applause.

A packed church saluted the arrival of Arrigo’s coffin, carried by pallbearers from the Nationalist parliamentary group – Joe Giglio, Darren Carabott, Graham Bencini, former PN leader Adrian Delia, Alex Borg, Robert Cutajar, and Jerome Caruana Cilia.

Arrigo served as deputy leader to Delia, whose emotion was in full display as he carried Arrigo’s coffin together with his colleagues.

Other mourners visibly present by the side of the MPs as they carried the coffin inside was former Valletta FC footballer Darren Debono. Many other members of the Maltese world of football, including the Sliema Wanderers team, were present.

Prime Minister Robert Abela and his spouse Dr Lydia Abela, Speaker of the House Anglu Farrugia, Opposition leader Bernard Grech and his wife Annemarie, and European Parliament president Roberta Metsola sat on the front row of mourners.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola, with Opposition leader Bernard Grech

The popular violinist George Curmi ‘il-Pusé’ led the funeral dirge. The emblem of the Sliema local council laid at the foot of the altar’s platform, where Arrigo’s coffin was surrounded by a sea of flowers from mourners.

The funeral mass was led by Father Claude Portelli, whose brother Pierre was a former Nationalist Party councillor for Sliema.

“In the ordinariness of his actions, Robert always placed at the heart of his interests the needs of the people he served,” Fr Portelli said of Arrigo. “He touched everybody’s hearts – and this packed church is a tribute to his public service. We need to recognise these qualities of his, and adopt them as ours – as he would say, ‘it’s never too late’.”

Portelli said Arrigo had confided in him the medical ordeal he was facing with his cancer: “He said he would fight it, and that he had faith in God.”

The funeral mass was book-ended by a rendition of the Sinatra classic My Way.

Arrigo died at the age of 67, early on Tuesday morning, with the announcement being made by the PN’s media.

Arrigo, an entrepreneur in the tourism sector, had been battling cancer over the past few months. Despite his illness, Arrigo kept in touch with his electorate and his never-say-die attitude was evidenced in one of his last Facebook posts advertising a December buffet dinner he was organising in aid of Puttinu Cares.

Arrigo had been an MP since 2003 and before that was mayor of Sliema and president of the locality’s football club.

Arrigo was married to Marina Arrigo and had two sons.