More than 450 people attended the funeral in Castlerathan, Co Cavan, yesterday of Tommy Reilly, who died in tragic circumstances in Montclair, New Jersey, last weekend.
It is alleged that he drowned his daughters Megan (6) and Kelly (5) before hanging himself in the attic of the family home.
"We have so many unanswered questions," Father Donal Killduff told mourners in St Mary's chapel outside Ballyjamesduff.
The mourners included Mr Reilly's elderly mother, his sisters Rose and Mary and his brother Paddy.
"News of the deaths shocked this community, a man that we knew to be a generous man, a man that gave the key of his door to many here today, a man that we knew to be good to his children, who was a native of this parish who emigrated to America and did well, yet who never lost touch with his native area. A man who cared for and helped to secure employment for many from this area," Father Killduff told mourners.
"There is a saying that there is such goodness in the worst of us and such badness in the best of us. What Tommy did was wrong . . . but there is a Christian belief that all life is sacred and what led him to do such a horrible thing to children that he loved will never be known."
The burial casket was draped with the Cavan county team colours and those of his local club, Castlerathan, and another from New York.
Mr Reilly (46) was buried alongside his father, also Thomas, who died in 1993 aged 85.