A New History of Ireland is the largest scholarly project in modern Irish history. In 9 volumes, it provides a comprehensive new synthesis of modern scholarship on every aspect of Irish history and prehistory, from the earliest geological and archaeological evidence, through the Middle Ages, down to the present day.

Volume VIII is the first of the companion volumes and consists of a chronology of Irish History extending from the earliest times to the end of 1976. It touches upon every aspect of Irish life for which dates can be given, and discusses problems of dating, source-material, forms of names, and technical forms in the general and section introductions.