This conclusion summarises the main findings, discusses the added value of the theoretical framework, examines the implications of the findings for the study of irredentism and International Relations Theory, and sketches an agenda for future research.

Comparing the two cases

There were a number of important differences between the FRG's and the Republic of Ireland's irredentism. Bonn's claim to the territories east of the Oder–Neiβe was connected to the fate of millions of expellees; this factor was absent in the Irish case. The FRG's claim to the GDR was predominantly based on the identification of East Germans as fellow Germans – an identification that East Germans reciprocated; in the Irish case, by contrast, the majority in the North have continuously rejected such a shared national identity. The German Question was firmly embedded in the Cold War; a comparable external conflict dimension was absent in the Irish case. The agreements in which Bonn recognised the territorial status quo in the early 1970s offered very few tangible benefits to the FRG; the Good Friday Agreement, by contrast, included provisions for all-Ireland institutions and a mechanism aimed at safeguarding the rights of the Nationalist minority in the North. Finally, it took the FRG about twenty years to renounce its territorial claims; Dublin, by contrast, claimed the North for almost seventy years.

These differences notwithstanding, the process through which both states came to renounce irredentism was very similar. Forgoing irredentism was not merely a policy change. It was a normative change.