This essay has, as its focus, the ‘Scheme for Free Post-Primary Education’ (hereafter the ‘free scheme’ or ‘scheme’)—a radical expansionist programme, premised ostensibly at least on egalitarian principles, which, it is claimed, produced a ‘societal transformation’ in Ireland. The chronology and controversy surrounding its implementation has been the focus of historical analysis, but far less attention has been devoted to the actual impact or legacies of the expansionist project, and the reasons for its failure to achieve a meaningful reduction in intergenerational educational inequality. This essay offers an alternative to the optimistic and socially transformative readings of the scheme by interrogating the social imaginary which drove the expansionist agenda and by exposing its counter-reformist consequences, which were to promote both qualitative and quantitative inequalities within the Irish education system.