Very recently my good friend Sinead lost her father. And he was a very great loss, not just to his family, but the community of northwest Mayo. At his funeral mass it was standing room only right through the car park.

There were 18 priests at the tiny altar; I thought he must have been an extraordinary man. From the few times I met him I could tell he was an impeccably mannered old-school gentleman - like my grandfather. A devout, respectable, pioneer who used his intelligence to do good things for people. A decent man. And so I grieved, not just for Paul Leonard and his family, but for the quality of generosity, decency, the uncompromising practice of Christian values that marked out extraordinary men of that generation.

Today, we aspire to mark ourselves out as extraordinary by being thinner, richer, having better cars, and bigger houses than our neighbours. "Goodness" is not an achievement.

"Decency" is not acknowledged as a quality. Last year Vincent, my grandmother's next-door neighbour died, but not before he had cut enough turf to see his widow through the following winter.

Her cousin John, when he knew he wasn't going to see Christmas, bought and sent all of his Christmas cards in November. Mindful of others, in the small ways that matter, right to the end.

Are there still compassionate auctioneers like my friend's father who can be trusted to look after the affairs of the elderly and the needy? Men with humility who are never boastful or flashy although they might have reason and means to be both? And while I was sitting in Killala church listening to Paul's eulogy I thought: is this the last generation of this kind of 'ordinary' yet extraordinary men?

What will they be saying about my generation of high achievers - "He had wall-mounted flat-screen TVs in every room and a Lamborghini by the time he was 50. He upgraded his house and his wives six times in a lifetime?"

It is depressing to think that the very qualities that mark us as outstanding human beings - selfsacrifice, kindness, generosity of spirit - have become so unfashionable, so dwarfed by modern passions of glamour and instant gratification.

I then looked at the front pew, which was filled with Paul's children, and I realised that they all have at least one thing in common - a social conscience. They are all, in one way or another, involved or interested in some kind of social or community activism.

Paul Leonard's legacy of decency is in his children, how they live their lives and what they pass on of that to their children.

So even in these selfish times, it's still possible for parents to hand on a strong moral legacy, if we are willing to mark ourselves out from the pack.

With what he has left behind him, Paul Leonard will surely Rest In Peace.