The Intermediate System of schooling, which operated in Ireland between 1878 and 1922, has, generally, been considered limited in ambition and as having generated a culture of high-stake terminal examinations. This article seeks a more nuanced understanding of the system and proposes that, despite an evolving system of secondary provision in Ireland prior to 1878, the Intermediate System provided an armature for a national system, prompted the awakening identity of the secondary teaching profession, stimulated the evolution of the teaching body in terms of trades union activity and initial teacher education; and, despite its many defects, provided increasing numbers of pupils with access to post-primary schooling in Ireland in the early decades of the twentieth century.