I’ll agree that there is a danger in comparing different conflicts, but it is not a new danger to comparative studies. Having said that, I’ll have to disagree with your analysis on the role of religion in NI conflict. Religion played a primary role in cultural identification. Victimes/casualities were nearly always identified by their religious affiliation. People refer to areas as being not just republican or union, but protestant and catholic. To ignore the impact of religion in NI would be a grave mistake. The same as ignoring the impact of the sunni and shia tensions on Islam in general or the differences between shias amongst the twelvers, the ismaili, and the zaidiyyah. Either way, the compression between the two conflicts focusing on religion as being the primary cultural identification is valid.

Forgive me if I mix my tenses here, I still have a hard time using the past tense when referring to the NI conflict.