Connacht encompasses the West of Ireland. The counties of Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, and Sligo make up this ancient province. Major towns are Galway City and Sligo. The rivers Moy, Shannon, and Suck flow through Connacht and the highest point within the 17,713 square kilometres of the area is Mweelra (818 metres).

The name "Connacht" derives from the mythological Conn of the Hundred Battles. The local king Ruairi O'Connor was High King of Ireland at the time of Stongbow's conquest but Anglo-Norman settlement in the 13th century started the steady decline of Irish power. Galway developed important trade links with Spain, becoming most powerful in the 16th century. This was also the heyday of local "Pirate Queen" Grace O'Malley. Catholic settlement under Cromwell, the Battle of Aughrim (1691), French General Humbert's invasion of 1798 and the great famine (1845) were the most important historical events.

Connacht was always the poorest and most disadvantaged region of Ireland in which to live. The province was long regarded as the backwater of all backwaters.

Oliver Cromwell led an English Parliamentary invasion of Ireland (1649–53) during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. His aim was to eliminate the military threat posed by the alliance of the Irish Confederate Catholics and English Royalists to the Commonwealth and punishing the Irish for their rebellion of 1641. Cromwell vowed to send Irish rebels "to hell or to Connacht."

Because of their remoteness and the relative poverty of the land, the counties of Connacht, together with Co. Clare, were excluded from the confiscations following the wars of the seventeenth century, and became a refuge of sorts for those dispossessed elsewhere. By the nineteenth century the region was densely populated and desperately poor, with the result that its people suffered disproportionately in the Famine and the mass emigration that followed.

Today, Connacht relies mainly on tourism and agriculture - Galway City being a notable exception with several high-tech-industries and a university. Nature, ancient monuments, and small-scale attractions are the norm, with only few tourist towns.

Sligo presents one of the most valuable stone age sites in the world at Carrowmore. Probably Ireland's greatest Cairn (buriel mount) is located atop Knocknarea overlooking Sligo. Queen Maeve of the Celts who ruled Connacht is said to be buried here. Also overlooking Sligo is Ben Bulben and the home of William Butler Yeats. Turlough O Connor's Tuath or Clan ruled Connacht for many centuries.

Knock International Airport connects Connacht with the rest of the World. Galway - city of the tribes, has many attractions - Eyre Square, The Corrib Salmon Weir and the Spanish Arch as well as many traditional pubs. The Galway Arts festival is a major summer attraction.

Lough Conn, Lough Mask and Lough Corrib are dominating features of Connemara. Irelands largest river the Shannon rises in Co.Leitrim were it also flows through Lough Allen. Achill island and the Aran islands of the West coast provide tradition and the ways of old Ireland.