Saturday Evening. Oliver McCullagh looks disappointed. He's spent the past six months organising tonight's five-mile road race over the country roads around the Co Tyrone village of Greencastle. But 20 minutes before the designated start - "7 p.m. sharp" it said on the posters and the entry forms - the car park outside the registration office and changing rooms is all but empty. There is only a smattering of cars and a handful of athletes stretching and warming up.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. With over £500 worth of prize-money on offer Oliver McCullagh was confidently expecting to attract some of the best road runners from across Northern Ireland. Races like this are regular events over the summer months in small rural communities like Greencastle and with a hard core of runners still pounding the roads years after the end of the marathon boom they are invariably well supported.

"We were expecting over 100 runners for this," says McCullagh. Why then will there be less than a fifth of that number lining up on the Greencastle start line on this first Saturday in July?

"It's obvious. It looks like people have been worried about travelling and about being out on the roads too late at night because of Drumcree. That's why they're not here."

On the wider scale of things, this isn't the most disruptive effect that the Drumcree stand-off will have over the weekend or during the week ahead but it's an indication of just how far the ripples can travel when a pebble is thrown into the pond. What is happening here is a microcosm of the creeping paralysis that looms over all aspects of sporting and cultural life here during the month of July.

Some athletes - including Irish international Teresa Duffy - have made the journey to Tyrone - but when the field is called to the line a few minutes after 7 p.m. there are fewer than 15 runners.

The send-off by the small clutch of spectators is low-key and the short wait for the field to wheel its way around the tight country roads begins. Just over 25 minutes later the first man home is Donal Gallagher and a few minutes after that Duffy crosses the line to win the women's race.

"25:41 is a very good run," says Oliver McCullagh, standing by the start-finish line. "The wind was behind them for most of the race but I think that was very good."

Around him there are runners warming down and changing at the boots of their cars while the rest are completing the course. Polite words of congratulation are exchanged but nobody wants to hang around too long and run the risk of travelling home in the gathering darkness.

"I think 25:41 is a course record," Oliver McCullagh says to nobody in particular.

Sunday afternoon. Casement Park is eerily quiet 15 minutes before the throw-in of the Ulster minor hurling final with only a handful of spectators scattered around the West Belfast ground.

In the bowels of the main stand the only activity is centred around the small, battered black and white portable television in the corner of the main office.

The reception is poor and the sound cuts out intermittingly but some bright spark has rigged up a black plastic-handled knife as a make-shift aerial. GAA officials filter in and out to watch the live BBC coverage of Drumcree. "Any change boys, anything new happening?" is the repeated question.

Things then take a surreal turn as members of the Antrim minor squad complete their big-match preparations not with some last-minute stretching but by standing around watching the continuing news reports. A team mentor walks through the door, surveys the situation and barks out an order. "Come on boys. There's no time for standing around here - we've a game of hurling to play."

With its history and its location Casement Park is a place redolent of symbolism on this Drumcree Sunday. And there's an uneasiness here that the GAA in the North could be dragged into this developing situation following morning newspaper reports that loyalists plan to stage protests and pickets at GAA grounds in mainly-Protestant areas. If Catholics find the Orange Order offensive, so the argument goes, then unionists can similarly express their opposition to the GAA and Rule 21.

This would require a considerable level of organisation, but Drumcree has already shown that this is an Orange Order strongpoint. And with so many GAA grounds in isolated rural areas, the potential for disruption and flashpoints is huge.

In many ways this is the natural endgame of the divisive Rule 21 debate that has catapulted the GAA into the North's political melting pot ever since its deletion was first mooted back in May. The real-politik of the situation means it would be naive to believe that a sporting organisation with the dominance and popularity of the GAA could remain outside wider debates about cultural and sporting rights and identities.

When the hurlers of Antrim and Derry take the field for the senior final just before 3.30 p.m. the ground has filled a little but the crowd is noticeably down on previous year's hurling finals. It's not that there's been any widescale street violence so far but it's clear that supporters in both counties have adopted a "sit tight" approach.

Antrim duly regain their Ulster senior hurling title to fairly muted acclaim and afterwards the corridor that connects the opposing dressing-rooms is crowded with men like Sean McGuinness, Kevin McNaughton and Gerry McClorey, men who have struggled to promote the GAA in their counties through some of the worst days of the Troubles. To some of them this all must seem sadly familiar.

The crowd and players don't take long to leave Casement. Outside someone is talking about a basketball training camp in Dungannon for boys and girls that could be cancelled because parents aren't prepared to let their children travel. Just another ripple in the pond.