> NI was explicitly created as a hack to an all-Ireland independence referendum at the start of 20th century. It was a landslide victory for a one-Ireland state and the UK created this never-seen-before entity as a response.

The UK government didn't have a lot of choice, the Ulster Protestants would almost certainly have fought a civil war if the full island was granted domininion status.

The boundary commission was problematic, but the real issue post partition was the removal of PR by the NI government. I think that if the ballot box hadn't essentially been stacked against Catholics we might not have seen the Troubles.