  Birmele [J. Graph Theory, 2003] proved that every graph with circumference t
has treewidth at most t-1. Under the additional assumption of 2-connectivity,
such graphs have bounded pathwidth, which is a qualitatively stronger result.
Birmele's theorem was extended by Birmele, Bondy and Reed [Combinatorica, 2007]
who showed that every graph without k disjoint cycles of length at least t has
bounded treewidth (as a function of k and t). Our main result states that,
under the additional assumption of (k + 1)- connectivity, such graphs have
bounded pathwidth. In fact, they have pathwidth O(t^3 + tk^2). Moreover,
examples show that (k + 1)-connectivity is required for bounded pathwidth to
hold. These results suggest the following general question: for which values of
k and graphs H does every k-connected H-minor-free graph have bounded
pathwidth? We discuss this question and provide a few observations.
