I am reading about its history and I really don't understand it, and nobody is asking that question.
Ireland is relatively small island, for most of its history dominated by one culture and language. It doesn't have very mountainous terrain, like for example Greece, which would isolate areas of the country from each other. It even had powerful external enemies for centuries, and thus a good motivation to unite.
And yet it never did. It was always divided between so many petty kings for is small size, and "high kings," had relatively little power. Despite so much bigger and more diverse countries uniting into centralized states.
Are there any attempts to explain why Ireland was so extremely divided? Anything to do with geography of the country that I didn't understand, or some other factors?
Hey there,
Just to let you know, your question is fine, and we're letting it stand. However, you should be aware that questions framed as 'Why didn't X do Y' relatively often don't get an answer that meets our standards (in our experience as moderators). There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, it often can be difficult to prove the counterfactual: historians know much more about what happened than what might have happened. Secondly, 'why didn't X do Y' questions are sometimes phrased in an ahistorical way. It's worth remembering that people in the past couldn't see into the future, and they generally didn't have all the information we now have about their situations; things that look obvious now didn't necessarily look that way at the time.
If you end up not getting a response after a day or two, consider asking a new question focusing instead on why what happened did happen (rather than why what didn't happen didn't happen) - this kind of question is more likely to get a response in our experience. Hope this helps!