1. St Lucy was a Christian martyr in Sicily who died around AD310.

 

2. According to legend, she converted to Christianity after an angel appeared to her, dedicated her virginity to God and was denounced to the Romans by the man she was engaged to.

 

3. The island of Saint Lucia was given its name by French colonisers in the 17th century.

 

4. Saint Lucia changed hands between the French and British 14 times in the 17th and 18th centuries.

 

5. In the common belief that December 13 was the date of the winter solstice, the English poet John Donne (1572-1631) wrote “A Nocturnal Upon S. Lucy’s Day, Being the Shortest Day”.

 

6. Despite a population of only 176,000, Saint Lucians have won two Nobel Prizes: Arthur Lewis (economics) and Derek Walcott (literature).

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7. Only the Faroe Islands (one Nobel among 49,000 people) has a higher rate of Nobel Prizes.

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8. St Lucia has won no Olympic medals. Its largest team was six athletes at Atlanta 1996.

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9. The national bird is the St Lucia Parrot, or Jacquot, which is native only to Saint Lucia.

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10. St Lucy is patron saint of the blind, martyrs, epidemics, salesmen, throat infections and writers.

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