In a quiet churchyard in rural Northern Ireland lie three graves bearing one name: Dunlop.
Joey, Robert and William. Buried next to each other by the same minister, all killed on two wheels pursuing the sport that made them and broke them.
For more than 40 years, two sets of brothers have dominated the dangerous, thrilling and brilliant world of motorcycle road racing.
First came Joey and Robert, and then Robert’s two sons, William and Michael – who races on.
Less than a year since his older brother William was killed in a race just outside Dublin, Michael Dunlop is back on the roads of Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, hustling a £70,000 superbike at speeds of up to 200mph.
From the outside, you might wonder why.
Why doesn’t Michael hang up his leathers after losing a brother, a father and an uncle?
It was a last-minute decision. In May 2018, William Dunlop pulled out of the Isle of Man TT to spend time with his partner Janine, who was six months pregnant with their second child and having difficulties.
The TT in early June dominates the calendar for road racers – but William was sure he was doing the right thing. Family had to come first.
William had, understandably, struggled to truly enjoy the sport since his father Robert was killed in an accident in 2008. Some say he was planning to walk away from racing.
He and Janine spent a weekend away with their daughter Ella.
“It was the most lovely weekend; it was so relaxed,” Janine says. “As a family it was so lovely to spend proper quality time together.
“When William had got back into a better head space, when he said he was going back to another race that weekend, I didn’t even feel like I had to worry. At hospital too, things were looking better with the pregnancy, and the morning he set off to the race he was on such good form.
“And then, obviously, things end up the way they ended up.”
William Dunlop was killed at the Skerries 100 road race just outside of Dublin on 7 July 2018. He was 32. A mechanical failure caused oil from his bike to pour on to his rear wheel at huge speed. He was thrown from his bike and died instantly.
Tragically, he would never meet his second daughter Willa, born two months later.
“He was a natural as a racer but goodness he was a natural as a father,” says Janine. “Being a dad helped heal William in the loss of his own dad.
“I can see their daddy in the two girls we have. I know that is only going to develop and get stronger as they get older, and it is beautiful and it is heartbreaking in equal measures, because he was denied the opportunity to do something that I believe he was born to do, and that was be a dad.
“Racing came before I did and it was very much ingrained in who William was. People have told me that his style, the way he rode; it just all seemed very effortless. So I can imagine the thought of giving something like that up would have been incredibly difficult and certainly not something
I was going to ask him to do.
“However I could see, especially when he became a daddy, I could see a shift in William.”
Liam Beckett is a close family friend of the Dunlops. He helped Robert throughout his career and saw William and Michael grow up to be world-class talents. He describes William’s death as “unthinkable, unimaginable”.
He says: “William was seriously contemplating stopping racing, I know that for a fact. He was so engrossed in his young family that that season would have finished him. Sadly he didn’t get the chance to step away.
“I was heartbroken. I was there when he was born and it’s not right that he should be away before me. For him to be taken at such a young age – I was full of deep sadness and anger, but who could I blame? We all know the risks.
