Connacht

Connacht or Connaught , province (1991 pop. 423,031), 6,611 sq mi (17,122 km), W Republic of Ireland, comprising the counties of Mayo , Sligo , Leitrim , Roscommon , and Galway . It was one of the ancient kingdoms of Ireland, whose rulers, the O'Connors, were supplanted by the Anglo-Norman De Burghs in the 13th cent.

Connacht a province in the south-west of Ireland; with Ulster, Munster, and Leinster one of the traditional four divisions of the island. Also called Connaught.
Hell or Connaught is a summary of the choice offered to the Catholic population of Ireland, transported to the western counties of Connacht to make room for settlers, traditionally attributed to Oliver Cromwell.

Connacht (Connaught), taking its name from the mythical Irish figure, Conn of the Hundred Battles, was, by the 8th cent., dominated by the Uí Briúin dynasty. Their hegemony was threatened by Anglo‐Normancolonization in the 13th cent., led by the de Burgh family. The establishment of the presidency of Connacht in 1570 and the shiring of the province thereafter led to piecemeal plantation, and in the aftermath of the rebellion of 1641 surviving catholic landholders were transported there, a process summed up in the aphorism ascribed to Cromwell ‘To hell or Connacht!’ It played a significant part in the 1798 rebellion, witnessing the landing of the French General Humbert at Killala, and Connacht was also the scene of much activity in the Land Wars of the late 19th cent., most memorably in the incident involving the land‐agent Captain Boycott.