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In this chapter the relationship between educational qualifications and class of entry into the labour market in Ireland is examined using data on entrants to the labour market since 1967. The goal of the study is to show how macro-social and institutional factors condition the nature of the link between qualifications and entry class. The chapter begins with an outline of salient institutional features of the Irish educational system and the Irish labour market. Four sets of analyses are reported: (1) the relationship between class origin and education; (2) the relationship between class origin and class of entry; (3) the relationship between education and class of entry; and (4) the relationship between class of entry and the effects of both class origins and education. It is suggested that among both men and women, in general terms, the impact of education is chiefly hierarchical, with employers, in Ireland's slack labour market, using level of educational attainment as a signalling device for 'potential general productivity'.