Dunlop, (John) Boyd (1913–2005), orthopaedic surgeon, was born in Dublin on 31 July 1913, only son of John (Johnny) Boyd Dunlop and his wife Constance Mary (née Moore), who also had a daughter. Both families were presbyterian. His father was a director of a drapery company, Todd Burns, in Dublin, and Constance Dunlop's father, John Gibson Moore, was an accountant and director of Switzer's department store. The first pneumatic tyre was created in 1887 in Belfast for Johnny Dunlop, Boyd's father, by his father, John Boyd Dunlop (qv) (1840–1921). Johnny Dunlop contracted meningitis and died aged only 42, in 1920. Boyd Dunlop attended Castle Park School in Dalkey, and then went to Uppingham School in Rutland, England. He came back to Dublin to read medicine at TCD, and qualified in 1941.
Boyd volunteered to serve in the British forces in the second world war, and was a surgeon-lieutenant in the British Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He served on the construction site of one of the Mulberry floating harbours at Arromanches on the coast of Normandy during the preparations for D Day in 1944. He returned to Dublin to take up a registrarship in Dr Steevens' Hospital, and became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1948. As his interest in orthopaedic surgery developed, he gained experience in study visits to Europe and the United States, and in 1950 he was appointed surgeon to Dr Steevens' Hospital and also surgeon to the Incorporated Orthopaedic Hospital of Ireland. He retained both appointments until his retirement in 1983, and earned a reputation as an excellent clinician and inspiring teacher of scores of medical students.
In the early and mid 1950s, there was a worldwide epidemic of poliomyelitis, which left thousands of people with disabilities. Thanks to the development of the Salk vaccine and other immunisation programmes, polio was to disappear almost entirely over the following decades, but at the time treatment for survivors, both palliative and restorative, was a priority for surgeons and doctors. However, it was thanks to the initiative of two lay women, Valerie Goulding (qv) and Kathleen O'Rourke, that Ireland's first dedicated institution to help polio victims was opened in 1951. The first patients were carried up three flights of stairs to improvised facilities in O'Rourke's flat on Upper Pembroke Street, Dublin. Physiotherapy and other treatments took place on a dining room table padded with rugs, but after two years the clinic had to move to larger premises, first in Prospect House, Goatstown (1954), and then in Clontarf (1966). Although Dunlop, as a member of the medical establishment, might have been expected to oppose the efforts of non-medical volunteers, he instead enthusiastically supported the Central Remedial Clinic and was a consultant right from the beginning. His expertise in surgical intervention as well as in other methods of rehabilitation was of vital importance to hundreds of young patients, many of whom were enabled to get out of wheelchairs or do without leg calipers after treatment in the Central Remedial Clinic.
As poliomyelitis became a less significant cause of disability, Dunlop kept abreast of developments in other aspects of orthopaedic medicine, and in particular the requirements of sufferers from cerebral palsy, though he was also expert in joint replacements. Over 4,000 children and several hundred adults were helped by the clinic; after his death, former patients paid warm tributes to Dunlop, noting his personal involvement with their care, and his great surgical expertise. He was also closely involved with the charitable fundraising so important to the clinic, which had to find its own sources of income until 1977; his social, sporting and family contacts were no doubt of value to Lady Goulding as she arranged the midnight film matinees, dances and other social occasions which enhanced the profile of the clinic as well as its finances. Dunlop was a keen sportsman, and especially excelled in yacht racing
His wife Evelyn was the second daughter of William Nesbitt of Ailesbury Rd, Dublin; her father was chairman of Arnott's department store in the city. They married on 4 February 1943 in St Andrew's presbyterian church, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, and had one son and two daughters, who with their mother survived Boyd Dunlop when he died in Killiney, Co. Dublin, 10 December 2005.