In Irish the province is usually Cúige Chonnacht i.e. the province (literally, fifth) of Connacht. Its main urban centres are Galway in the south, and Sligo in the north. It has a population of 503,083, the smallest of the four Irish provinces.
An alternative anglicised spelling which was used more before Irish indepedence by British authorities is Connaught[1]
The highest point of Connacht is Mweelrea (814 metres), in Mayo. The largest island in Connacht is Achill, also the largest island of Ireland. The biggest lake is Lough Corrib.
Up to the early historic era, it was known as Cóiced Ol nEchmacht. Connacht was a Kings of Connacht during the middle ages with kings inaugurated officially up until the late 17th Century. The ruling C'Conor Don family have survived until the present day.
The "Republic of Connaught" had a brief existence in 1798 with French military support.
^The spelling Connaught reflects the former English practice — in Ireland, though not in Scotland — of representing the Gaelicvoiceless velar fricative/x/ as gh (compare lough for loch), gh having been used in Middle English for the same sound. Although this sound later disappeared from standard English, the spelling of words like "thought" and "caught" remained unaltered -- and in a further Anglicisation the "new" English pronunciation of -aught was even applied in England to titles like that of the Duke of Connaught. In Ireland, however, the original pronunciation having remained intact, the Gaelic-style spelling Connacht is now used more often in English. It may have gained currency by mistranslation of the Irish name into English: in Irish, the form Cúige Chonnacht 'province of Connacht' is almost always used, and this may have led to people misunderstanding genitive caseConnacht as the Gaelic version instead of nominative caseConnachta.
