Spot on - the modern nation state, with a silly bit of coloured rag to salute and a silly song to sing, developed slowly, but really came to full fruition in the the Thirty Years' War. I personally find it bizarre that particular characteristics are attributed to what amount to administrative divisions on a map. It really handicaps us when we face global-wide problems that need global-wide solutions, such as climate change, loss of natural habitat, overutilisation of natural resources and, of course (and very topically) people seeking a better life elsewhere.
Instead, we have trumped (if you'll pardon the expression)-up little would-be tsars trying to resurrect long-lost and largely imaginary glories by blowing up the administrative division next door, nasty little men trying to make good on a divine promise allegely made to a distant ancestor in the late Bronze Age and silly little men (and women) cutting off their noses to spite their faces in some strange notion of island exceptionalism. Nero would recognise what's happening.
Trouble is, the whole nonsense is so ingrained in the world as a whole that only a complete catastrophe would knock sense into our heads. Nikita Khruschev allegedly said that, when the time came to hang the last capitalist, the capitalist would sell him the rope. I can only hope that we get out of the rope-making business before it's too late.
Personally, I am Irish, but that's because I was born on the island called Ireland, full stop - I attribute no particular aspects to that.