[Octillion]

Even if the Irish, English, Scots, and Welsh did share prehistoric ancestors in Britian and Ireland, in the real world shared genes still don't count for much. National differences (cultural, linguistic, etc.) within the time of recorded history are real and directly bear on the ethnic nationalities of modern Europe. The Dutch and north Germans share a common ethnic ancestry and close cultural and linguistic similarities, and the Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes also share ethnic, linguistic, and cultural affinities both with one another, and again with the Germans and Dutch, yet the national differences between these peoples are real, at times quite stark, and tangible. Even so, I too am sceptical about this article's accuracy as taken from the NY Times. It has yet to be conclusively proved that the peoples of Ireland and Britain share a common ancestry.

Never forget the old joke about the six Scandinavians, two Danes, two Norwegians, and two Swedes, shipwrecked on a desert island. By the time it came for them to be rescued, the two Danes had formed a cooperative, the two Norwegians were fighting, and the two Swedes were still waiting to be introduced.

Now there's a good example of the national differences between ethnically similar people.