The first indications of the shockwaves that Joey Dunlop's death would send through every level of society were immediately apparent on the day he died a year ago yesterday (July 2nd). As a general rule, events or happenings of any great magnitude here tend to be the preserve of either one side or the other and the potential for cross-over is severely curtailed. But right from the start Joey Dunlop was different. He had lived that kind of life.

On July 2nd 2000 we were at Casement Park in Belfast for an Ulster championship game between Antrim and Down. Both counties enjoy sizeable and knowledgeable support and had turned up in significant numbers. These were GAA men and women, drawn from typical GAA stock and certainly not the kind of people from which motor cycle racing traditionally draws its fan-base.

And yet when news of the death of Joey Dunlop earlier that day at a road race in Estonia was announced before throw-in, a wave of shock and sadness rippled through the Casement crowd. Few if any would have been anywhere near any of the many hundreds of races that Dunlop had graced through a long and winding career, but that mattered little. Joey had made a connection with them in just the same way as he had with those die-hards who flocked to see him race in places like Cookstown, Dundrod and Aghadowey. The minute's silence that followed was impeccably and reverentially observed. On the first anniversary of his death, Joey Dunlop has been back in the news this week. His brothers Jim and Robert, himself a road racer of considerable renown, made a difficult and painful journey to the race track in Tallin which claimed Joey's life. At the corner on which he was killed, a simple elegant monument has been erected in his memory and the Dunlop brothers laid flowers there in silent tribute.

A number of local television crews had traveled with them, testimony to the enduring appeal of Joey Dunlop and the on-going public fascination with his life and death. But the entire occasion remained dignified and restrained. Robert spent a long time lost in his thoughts and declined invitations to be interviewed at the scene.

Perhaps more than anyone else, Robert realises the thin thread by which road racers like him and his brother cling to personal safety right through their careers. The very real possibility of serious injury and death stalks their every move. Little wonder, then, that introspection and a vague feeling of continuous unease should be part of their emotional make-up.

Joey Dunlop's star has not diminished in the year that has passed since that afternoon in Tallin. He has remained in the collective consciousness of this place in a way that few could have imagined as possible. He stands as a paradigm for what can be achieved by a sporting figure who remains true to himself and the people who connect with him.

Within the confines of his sport Joey was a superstar and yet he continued to work on his own bikes and sleep down in the trucks with the mechanics and the other riders.

One of the ironies of his life and death is that the influence of a man who was never even remotely interested in the cult of personality continues to loom large over the sport he has left behind. It is no exaggeration to say that motor cycle racing in the North has singularly failed to recover from the blow of the loss of its figurehead and emotional totem.

The timing of it all could not, of course, have been worse. Even before Dunlop's death the sport was under increasing pressure from those who said it was simply not safe to race on machines of frightening race-track power on public roads.

A succession of deaths in accidents that, to the outsider at least, appeared eminently preventable had already upped the ante. The likelihood is that the clamours for reform would have blown over in time but the loss of Dunlop in painfully similar circumstances altered the parameters of the entire debate. When a figure of Joey's stature died, it could only be so.

Factor into all of this the way in which the foot-and-mouth crisis ravaged all sport here in the spring - leading most notably to the abandonment of the North West 200 in May - and you have a sport facing something of a meltdown. The last meeting to be completed was the Ulster Grand Prix last August and there has not been a single scheduled road race this year.

Events at Cookstown, Tandragee, Dundrod, Temple and Carrowdore, all staples of the road racer's traditional diet, have not gone ahead for one reason or another. The concern is that that once the chain has been broken for a year it will be hard to pick up again in any meaningful way.

In parallel with this, many of the big names are no longer part of road racing. Some like Dunlop have died on the roads and others, prompted by the deaths of friends and colleagues, have intimated their unwillingness to race again. They have opted instead for the relative safety of enclosed short circuits with their chicanes, barriers and run-off safety areas. Of all the high profile riders, only Robert Dunlop has kept faith with the roads and he increasingly travels to events in the Republic in search of meaningful competition. His brave perseverance, in the face of everything that has befallen his family, feels like an act of homage and reverence. The courage required to keep going can only be guessed at.

Perhaps the safety aspect would have caught up with road racing in time anyway. The succession of deaths at the Isle of Man TT and, to a lesser extent, on the roads here was already taking its toll and public unease was beginning to mount. Insurance issues were also becoming a concern and a government began to take an interest the momentum for change was already beginning to grow.

The death of Joey Dunlop appears to have precipitated that process. If road racing can take the life of the man widely acknowledged as the sport's most accomplished and skilled proponent with such callous ease, then the argument that those with lesser talent and ability should be allowed to continue becomes increasingly difficult to make. The urge to pit man and machine against both one another and the elements will not simply disappear. But it seems increasingly likely that those contests will be transferred from the public roads with all their associated variables to the more controlled confines of custom-built arenas. The sport will not be diminished but the safety levels will be enhanced. That may turn out to be Joey Dunlop's most significant legacy.