During the 1960s a paradigm shift occurred within Irish education thanks to the penetration of the Republic’s system by the OECD-sponsored economics of education. The 1965 publication of Investment in Education was the key event in this change. The document reproduced and contextualised here demonstrates how this penetration process had begun as early as the late 1950s. It was pressed forward not only by international organisations like OECD and its OEEC predecessor but also by powerful private US agencies like the Ford Foundation. As leader of the team that produced Investment in Education, Patrick Lynch is the figure primarily associated with the rise of the economics of education in Ireland. Here the key mobilising role played by Lynch’s English friend and collaborator, John Vaizey, through a combination of elite network contacts within the world of international policy analysis and personal knowledge of the Irish scene, is highlighted.