Two of the most decent men Galway has known went to their reward far too early in the past ten days, sharing a handful of common attributes that set them apart from most of the rest of us – not least their decency, their integrity and their modest, unassuming nature.

We buried our great friend and colleague John Cunningham last week on an overcast day in Salthill; if he’d been in the whole of his health, you know he’d still have been walking the Prom.

One of those who came to his removal was Eamon Deacy, a local hero in every sense of the word who was to shock the city to its core when word of his own death became known on Monday morning.

Chick Deacy would have been a sporting legend in any era, but his shy, self-effacing nature meant he hid his light under a bushel. He walked the streets of his beloved city, and it was left to fathers to point out to their sons: “There goes the greatest footballer Galway has ever produced.”

Who would know that this quiet man had a League Championship medal with Aston Villa – one of a squad of just 14 who played that 1981 season – and a European Cup medal to boot?

What an utterly inspired choice he was for the Galway Sports Stars Hall of Fame award just a month ago – and how he spoke that night with a voice and an authority that we had rarely heard off the field of play.

The other thing that John Cunningham and Eamon Deacy shared was the knowledge that, at the end of the day, everything came down to the local. They were of Galway and part of the fabric of Galway – in different ways perhaps, but both boasting that absolutely integrity that is all too rare.

John edited the Connacht Tribune for 23 years, worked here for 45 – but, as he might say himself, that’s just a statistic. The real story was how he shaped the paper, and how he devoted almost all of his working life to its betterment and development.

Eamon Deacy achieved his ambition to play at the highest level and then he came home – a quiet hero who returned to his local club Galway Rovers, the club he played for on their first day in the League of Ireland and for whom he scored the first ever senior goal.

He could have stayed at Aston Villa – then one of the top sides in European football – or he could have followed the money to another big club. But money and glory were never his motivation and he returned, never to play the superstar but yet every inch a sporting hero.

It’s easy to get maudlin over the death of good friends and it can be self-indulgent when you’re fortunate enough to have the newspaper space on which to do it.

But the crowds that came to both funerals showed that these were two people who touched the hearts of their city and county, and who went to their undoubted reward far, far too soon.

We live in an era of egotistical footballers and unethical journalism, when the money is all consuming for one profession and the end result – however attained – is all that matters for the other.

The Leveson Inquiry in the UK – coupled with the long queue of celebrities and private citizens waiting for their pay-out from the News of the World phone hacking scandal – puts all of the worst excesses of the newspaper industry into the spotlight.

Equally, the disgraceful actions of Luiz Suarez, and perhaps John Terry, show footballers to be overpaid, ignorant bigots.

We shouldn’t generalise but these professions too also boasted people like John Cunningham and Eamon Deacy, men who were as far from the megalomania and madness as you could possibly be.
John Cunningham knew that and he was aware that, even when a court case was going into the paper, there were others outside of the convicted person who would be hurt by it – his or her parents, children, relations; people who did nothing wrong and whose only connection was by marriage or birth.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.