Group 8 consisted of six of the 50 teams entered into the European zone: Iceland, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macedonia, Republic of Ireland, and Romania. These five teams competed on a home-and-away basis for two of the 15 spots in the final tournament allocated to the European zone, with the group's winner and runner-up claiming those spots.
References
1998 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group 8 Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA