The GAA year here used to have its own idiosyncratic rhythm, from the National League games stolen in the gathering gloom of Sunday afternoons in February to the mellowness of September and the afterglow of the All-Ireland finals. July fell in the middle of this sequence and used to be marked each year by the same familiar preoccupations - the Ulster hurling final, the stoking of the fires of the county championships and the frantic hunt for tickets for the football final at the end of the month.

But this year it is different, just as it has been for the past five or six summers. The established order is crumbling and all those old certainties are fast attaining the status of historical curios. In their place a whole new set of considerations has been factored into the culture of the GAA here. Death threats, disrupted training sessions and road-blocks are now as much a part of the life of the association and its members as moaning about referees. It all leaves a very sour taste.

The root of the problem is timing. The climax of the provincial GAA season now coincides directly with the annual Drumcree stand-off and, more often that not, in recent years the Ulster hurling final has been fixed for the same day as Drumcree Sunday. In a relatively trouble-free year like 1999, this does not create many difficulties but those peaceful Julys have, in recent years, been outnumbered by periods of sustained civil unrest. The effects are felt throughout society here but the GAA has suffered more than most.

All of this could not have come at a worse time for the provincial hurling championship. The emergence of Derry to challenge the hegemony of Antrim and Down has created a genuinely competitive competition for the first time in generations but the development of the game has been stymied by people's understandable reluctance to travel to Belfast for the final on the second Sunday in July. The implications for the ability of counties to prepare properly for such finals are also far-reaching. Hurling in Antrim, Derry and Down flourishes in small rural communities but in many instances these communities are also the focus for the kind of civil disturbance that have pockmarked life here over the past week. The net effect of this on teams is little short of catastrophic. Training sessions, if they take place at all, may only be attended by a handful of players because of the logistical problems of travelling through impromptu roadblocks. Preparation of counties then becomes a haphazard, stop-go affair. Then there is the challenge of getting to and from the venues for matches. A local newspaper preview of last weekend's under-21 hurling semi-finals concentrated first on the concerns of the Antrim county board about their trip to Armagh and then on Derry's anxiety about the return journey from the Ards Peninsula. Speculation about tactics, injuries and team line-ups was almost an afterthought. This cannot be right because it reflects a seriously dysfunctional sporting culture. The abnormal and grotesque have become the norm and everyone and everything is devalued as a consequence.

This widespread disruption is only the outward manifestation of a more deep-seated concern for the GAA. After the traumas of the previous three decades there had recently been indications that the siege was lifting and the association here appeared invigorated as a result. The dark days of the killing of GAA members like Aidan McAnespie and Sean Brown, the burning of clubrooms and the ominous threats looked to have been consigned to the past.

But in the past fortnight all of that has been catapulted back to the forefront of GAA minds with the death threat issued against two local officials. Both were informed it was made by a group known as the Orange Volunteers. It had previously claimed responsibility for the murder of Sean Brown in Bellaghy in May 1997 and unlike other loyalist paramilitary groupings it has never declared a ceasefire.

The effect of this threat has been both pernicious and widely felt. It is a clear attempt to create a climate of fear and uncertainty and the net result is to put the GAA as a whole on the defensive. When the mere fact of membership of a sporting organisation can make you a target for paramilitaries there is ample scope for insecurity and uncertainty to thrive. The starting point might be the burning of a GAA hall or preventing players from getting to a training session but the insidious thing is that nobody can be sure where it will all stop. That is what does the real damage.

But the particularly aggravating factor is that through all of this the GAA is attempting to fulfil its role as a sporting organisation. Threats and the fear they engender do not make that any easier. The simple fact is that the GAA is mistrusted by a large section of the population here and all too often that mistrust of what is regarded as an alien influence spills over into open antipathy. The association and everyone connected with it then become obvious targets.

One of the striking aspects of recent history here is that the GAA has been able to survive at all, never mind thrive and prosper. That it has done so is an enduring tribute to those that guided it through some very difficult times. The 1981 hunger strikes presented a turn in the road and some tough decisions had to be made about the GAA and its role as it came under what amounted to almost intolerable pressure to involve itself more actively in day-to-day politics. In the end it stepped back from that ideological leap and in the process retained its integrity. The attention it continues to attract in the form of arson attacks and death threats is a perverse indication of its current powerful cultural position.

It is difficult, though, for the ordinary GAA members in the clubs of north Belfast, south Derry and east Tyrone not to feel just a little uneasy during these days and weeks. The favoured mantra of politicians is that having travelled so far there is no way that we can now go back. But the spectre of loyalist paramilitaries once again lining up against the GAA represents a throwback to a painful period in the recent history of this place. The testing times for the GAA and its members are not yet over but they can be sure of at least one thing. July will never be same again.