Dean Robert Sutton

Here we see the first example of three of the oldest brass monuments in Ireland.

The first brass dates from around 1528, and is dedicated to Master Robert Sutton, once Dean of this cathedral, who died on the 1st April 1528.

The inscription on the scroll when translated from Latin reads “O Lord in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.” It is taken from Psalm 71 verse 1. A more modern translation of the verse would read, “In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame”. This verse from the Psalm is part of a prayer of confidence in God. The writer of the Psalm repeatedly prays for deliverance from his present affliction. His conviction that God rules and acts righteously upholds him in his faith, for God will deliver him from the wicked, and all those devoted to evil.

Dean Sutton trusted that God would help him to overcome the evils set against him. Although Robert Sutton was Dean for only one year, he lacked no less conviction towards his God than the Psalmist. What exactly the evils were that he had to contend with, we are unsure. What we do know is that Dean Sutton spent most of his time in England, whether it was because of his own ill health or because of the Plague which raged in Dublin at the time, we cannot say. All we can be certain of was that he trusted that God would help him in his struggle against all that was evil. He can be seen on the brass in a faithful attitude of prayer, reading the scroll and praying the prayer of confidence: “O Lord in thee have I trusted let me never be confounded.”

However, it is not so much the faith of Dean Sutton that captures our attention, rather the beliefs of the church as a whole less than a century later. For in the right hand corner of the brass, we see a crude attempt to erase what is believed to have been a symbolic representation of the Holy Trinity. During the reformation of the church such symbols were thought to be idolatrous. Many statues and monuments were either defaced or destroyed, and countless religious artefacts were lost forever. Thomas Cromwell, under orders from Henry VIII, is said to have destroyed all the statues of saints and images. A number of the monuments within this cathedral have visible signs of damage, and there are obvious sites where statues once stood.

The church as a whole underwent tremendous change during the sixteenth century. Theologians like Luther and Calvin reshaped much of the religious thinking of their time. They began to question some of the practices of the church, and sought a return to Biblical teaching. The church of the day divided. The Protestant church was born.

The Reformers believed they were fighting against evils within the church. They struggled against what they believed to be wrongful practices which had become part of the tradition of the church as a whole. Like Dean Sutton, they would have turned to the Psalms regularly as a source of comfort, believing that God would drive out all that was evil in their world, and in the church.

In recent years the church has sought to rebuild bridges between denominations, focusing on all that unites us rather than concentrating only on what divides us. Here at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral we recognise the depth and breadth of the church of Christ as a whole. It is so much more enriching to see diversity in worship as part of the beauty of God’s creation, rather than allowing the sin of division to belittle it.

The second brass dates from around 1537, and is dedicated to the memory of Dean Geoffry Fyche. The inscription when translated from Latin reads, “Have mercy upon me, O Holy King, Lord Jesu Christ.”