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Notes -
With two highly similar groups, they still have a strong independence movement in Scotland. Even minute differences between groups can lead to centuries of problems. If these differences had been larger they would have been much worse. Belgium is still spit between french and Walloons 200 years later. Yugoslavia didn't work. Iraq hasn't been able to unite.
Trying to get completely different groups to work together is bound to fail.
That may be true or it may not be, but Ulster seems like a bad example as for most of its history they didn't even try. In the recent decades where they have tried to cooperate, things have gotten a lot better.
It's also a tiny area which was inevitably swept up in larger currents. The conflict didn't rise up purely from within, whether it was the old IRA down south or the Jacobite threat they had a lot of external disturbances which caused divide.
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