How reading is positioned and conceptualised in the national curriculum gives insights into the relative priority given to literacy at a given moment in time. This article provides a close analysis of how English reading has evolved during four major curricular epochs in Irish primary schools. Though the focus is the past six decades, the curriculum still in place in the late 1960s dictates that the analysis begins with the National Programme of Primary Instruction instigated by the new Free State Government in 1922. We examine the later versions of this National Programme before turning to the ‘new’ Primary School Curriculum (1971), the ‘revised’ Primary School Curriculum (1999), and the Primary Language Curriculum (2015, 2019, 2025). The analysis provides the first account of how key aspects of reading – including word recognition and comprehension – have matured in their presentation over the course of the last 100 years of Irish curriculum. It also details the societal influences that have (and have not) influenced the recommendations for how reading might be taught in schools. The paper concludes with a discussion of how research, politics, and views of teacher professionalism have been presented in this time.