The concluding section takes a brief look at the two new states that emerged from the partition settlement. It argues that the traumatic and violent experience of their creation did much to shape their later social, economic and political cultures. The primary focus is on the way both states sought to use their newly acquired power to shore up their own legitimacy through commemoration, education and various state myths about their founding period. Particular focus is given to the often unspoken competition that existed between both states and how partition effectively allowed the two most radical manifestations of Irish unionism and Irish nationalism to shape the states in their own image.