Warwickshire and the Impending English Issue

Speaking in a voice of neither Thady Quirk nor “the Editor,” the final sentences of Castle Rackrent ask, “Did the Warwickshire militia, who were chiefly artisans, teach the Irish to drink beer? Or did they learn from the Irish to drink whiskey?” A county in the West Midlands region of England, Warwickshire would have had important historical and social connotations for Edgeworth’s readers, both Irish and English. As explained in a note, this militia policed Ireland during the 1790s—the decade immediately preceding the novel’s publication and the time of a sociopolitical debate over alcohol production and consumption. By stating the English intruders attempted to “teach the Irish to drink beer,” the author hints at the commercial pressure applied by the English, which ultimately led to the removal of the tax on beer. The reference to Warwickshire also conjures the idea of political conflict because it was the site of the Battle of Edgehill in the English Civil War during the middle decades of the 1600s. By placing this reference after a discussion of the impending Union, the author questions the ability of the English to improve an Irish society already marred by alcohol abuse and instability.