Succath was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, almost fifteen hundred years ago.   He grew up like any other boy, but when he was sixteen years old, he was captured by pirates who carried him away to Ireland and sold him to an Ulster chieftain, who put him to work caring for his flocks and herds.   Six years he served this master, and then one day he managed to escape, and made his way to France.

           While he was there, something happened which changed his entire life ~ he found a new master, and that master was Christ.   Now, as he thought of his captive days in Ireland, he did not do so with bitterness.   Now, as he remembered the wrongs suffered at the hands of his pagan master, he did not do so with hatred.   He felt sorry, not only for him, but for all the people of Ireland, because they never had heard of Jesus, nor had the privilege of serving Him.

           Succath thought much about the meaning of life, and his responsibility for making known the gospel to others, and decided that he would like to prepare for work as a missionary.   It is said that as time went on he had visions in which God told him that it was His will that he should go back to the land where he had formerly been a slave, and take to the people there the story of Christ.   When he was living there, he hadn't even thought of his own salvation; now he was concerned about taking the gospel to those heathen Druid worshipers.

           When Succath finished his schooling, he went to Ireland in about the year 432.   There he met the king and the Druid priests and made a favorable impression on them, so he was allowed to stay and preach.   It was not long until he had won the hearts of all classes of people, and they welcomed him in their towns and cities.   He established schools for boys and girls, and founded monasteries where young men could study Chrisitianity and also be trained for the church.   He invented an alphabet for that country, and superintended the copying of books.   It is said that he started three hundred and sixty churches and baptized more than twelve thousand people.   For more than thirty years he preached, and Ireland became a Christian land.   Young men trained by him in turn went to other countries to tell the gospel story, while many of the nobility and middle-class people of England came across to Ireland to attend his schools.   It is said that he used the shamrock to illustrate the meaning of the trinity.   The shanrock came to be the national plant, and is worn each year upon his birthday.   It is also said that he drove all the snakes out of Ireland!