Castle Rackrent

Thady Quirk, a steward who is ever loyal to the family Rackrent, takes pride in both the family’s ancient relationship to the Kings of Ireland and their former name, O’Shaughlin. Being one of many in a long list of descendants who have served the family, Thady feels that his fate and his heart are intricately bound with the Rackrents. Appearance-wise, Thady dresses in an indigenously-Irish manner, wearing a “long great coat, winter and summer,” which is actually a threadbare mantle, held “on by a single button round [his] neck” (8).

Thady’s old-fashioned and downtrodden appearance is reflective of his blind allegiance to what Edgeworth shows to be outdated methods of estate management. Greatly partial to the heirs of Rackrent, Thady notices their faults, which he lists in terms of their results, even while turning a blind eye to them. Rather than taking pride in his son Jason’s intelligence and ascendancy at Castle Rackrent, Thady suffers along with the inept aristocrats when they fail, even “crying like a child” when Condy is forced to sell Castle Rackrent to Jason (78). Thady’s high emotionality—as well as his partiality to his creature comforts of pipe smoking, drink-fueled festivity and “little potatoes”—mark him out as Irish, or simply non-English, to an English reader who identifies themselves with the Enlightenment principles of rationality and impartiality (61). Additionally, Thady’s repetitive, long-winded phrasing, inflected with Irish words, serves to cement his alterity.

Patrick Rackrent, the last of the Rackrents to be able to retain his Irish name before the Act of Parliament, which forced all Irish-born aristocrats to anglicize their names, presides over the Golden Age of Rackrenting. Patrick laments the change to his name, taking it “to heart,” but acquiesces in order to retain his privilege (9). Interestingly, Thady does not appear to remember Patrick firsthand, but instead relies on the reports of his grandfather, who was Patrick’s driver. Patrick is known for giving the “finest entertainment in the country,” where the flow of drink is so abundant that none of the guests are left standing, apart from Patrick himself, “who could sit out the best man in Ireland, let alone the three kingdoms itself” (9). Nevertheless, the penchant for entertaining puts Patrick in such debt that at his funeral, his body is seized for debt. Despite this ignoble end, Patrick is commemorated in the fine marble stone that Sir Condy erects to celebrate his hospitality.

A different personality to Sir Patrick Rackrent, Sir Murtagh has an aura of frugality, given his choice of wife and refusal to open his house for entertainment. He also refuses to pay a shilling of his father’s debts, thereby continuing the Rackrent pattern of financial irresponsibility. He spends even more money on expensive lawsuits—at one time having sixteen, simultaneously—and often has to pay treble costs on the lawsuits he actually wins. Humorously, Thady notes “how [he] used to wonder to see Sir Murtagh in the midst of the papers in his office—why he could hardly turn about for them” (15). The dour figure of Sir Murtagh is finished off when, respecting his own logic above the lore of the land, he digs up a fairy-mount, which results in a fairy-inflicted mortal sickness. This, in addition to Sir Murtagh’s lack of hospitality, does not make him a favorite with Thady, who prefers that the Rackrents are more in Sir Patrick’s style.

Sir Murtagh’s wife is a widow and older than Murtagh. Thady suspects she has “Scotch blood in her veins” as a result of her quasi-Calvinist frugality and austerity (13). Her maiden name, Skinflint, also means penny pinching. She forces her regime of strictly observing Lent and fast days on her servants, causing one of the maids to faint three times. Lady Rackrent’s combination of moral duty and meanness is also shown in her management of the charity school, where the free tuition for poor children is undercut by the labor she makes them perform for free. Interestingly, after Sir Murtagh’s death, Lady Rackrent feels little tethered to the land and leaves, “to the joy of the tenantry” (18).

Sir Kit Stopgap inherits Castle Rackrent after Sir Murtagh and intends to return a sense of glamour to the place. “He had the spirit of a Prince, and lived away to the honour of his country abroad,” Thady writes, before explaining how this restless, spendthrift man employed a middle man to manage the estate (20). While Thady blames the middle man for the cruelties inflicted on the tenants, it’s clear that Sir Kit has worked up gambling debts in Bath and needs to extract as much money as possible from the land to pay them off. Sir Kit’s cruel nature is further exhibited in the treatment of his Jewish wife, whom he banishes to her room for seven years when she will not give up the diamonds that could boost his finances. Meanwhile, he entertains lavishly, exacerbating the debt already accumulated by the Rackrent family. He is also a ruthless dueler, having killed his own servant and threatening anyone who challenges him with a similar fate. However, he gets his comeuppance when, against all odds, he receives a bullet in a vital part and is carted home in a hand-barrow.

Sir Kit Stopgap’s unnamed Jewish wife fulfils late-18th-century Anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews being extremely rich and fond of jewels and money. Thady considers her appearance “little better than a blackamoor, and seemed crippled” and her speech to be her own “strange kind of English,” because she does not understand him (25, 26). Thady thus regards her as foreign as the Editor sees him, and as much of an Other as a native Irishman like him might be in England. 

From Thady’s perspective, and perhaps that of the Anti-Semitic 18th-century reader, the fact that Sir Kit marries a heathen, whose Unchristian ways threaten the wellbeing of the state, is a symptom of his desperation. Nevertheless, there is evidence that Sir Kit courted his wife, because as soon as they arrive at Rackrent, he shows her around. She is full of curiosity, examining the place over with her spyglass and marveling at the unfamiliarity of the language. However, when Sir Kit’s true motive becomes evident, the Jewish wife shows some backbone in refusing to hand over her diamonds or endure the humiliation of consenting to eat pork. Though she becomes “skin and bone” at the end of the seven years’ banishment and appears to be on her deathbed, she revives well when Sir Kit unexpectedly dies in a duel (31). As with Sir Murtagh’s Lady Rackrent, the Jewish wife also leaves Ireland, securing her fortune for herself, rather than lavishing it on the land.

The favorite “white-headed boy” of Thady, who was nurtured by him in childhood with tales of how he would inherit Castle Rackrent, Sir Condy is “a great likeness of Sir Patrick” and hopes to succeed him in style as well as acclaim (39, 40). Mild-tempered, gregarious Condy is devoid of the malice of Sir Murtagh and Sir Kit, but his passivity and constant deferral of business matters to Jason cause him to lose his grip on the property. Additionally, his denial to own up to his debts augments the family pattern, but with the added result that Castle Rackrent passes out of the family’s hands. Sir Condy displays other leadership weaknesses, such as relying on alcohol to block out his problems and making important life decisions—including that of a marriage partner—using a coin toss. Like Thady, he is ruled by whims and emotions, consoling himself for the loss of his estate by staging a wake while he is still alive. Ironically, the rabble at the wake is so great that he “‘can’t hear a word of all they’re saying about the deceased’” (82). Sir Condy, the last of the Rackrent heirs, is continually frustrated in his efforts to attain the greatness his title promises. He is the final nail in the coffin for the Rackrents.

Castle Rackrent’s successor, Jason Quirk is Thady’s son and a “high gentleman” who earns more than £1500 per year (8). Going to a small grammar school and training as a clerk and attorney, the ambitious, hard-working Jason becomes the agent of Castle Rackrent, the man who administers the family debts and step by step outmaneuvers the Rackrents off their estate. Unlike the Rackrents, he addresses problems directly and therefore understands how to use such resources as land and people. He, unlike Thady, feels that the Rackrents’ ineptitude makes them undeserving of their ancestral privileges and demands to be paid for his work under Sir Kit, not caring that it will plunge the family further into debt. Further, he does not hesitate to torment the Rackrents about their failures, taunting Sir Condy by withholding his whiskey punch until he has signed the paper confirming the handover of Castle Rackrent, saying: “it shan't be said of me, that I got your signature to this deed when you were half-seas over” (77-78). He thus draws attention to the common knowledge of Sir Condy’s drunkenness, while also betraying his anxiety that he will not be accepted as the rightful owner of Castle Rackrent unless all the paperwork is in order. Jason’s success prophetically reflects how the demise of the Anglo-Irish ruling class led to the rise of the Irish Middle Class. 

The victor of Sir Condy’s coin toss, Isabella becomes the last Lady Rackrent. A strong character with a flair for theatricals, Isabella is the one who initiates the courtship with Sir Condy, despite her father’s disapproval and the threat of being cut off from the family. She elopes with Sir Condy to Scotland and then, on her return, ensues on making their life as theatrical as possible by turning the barrack-room into the theatre and setting about visiting the country in “the finest coach and chariot, and horses and liveries” (48). Thady notes Isabella’s taste for drama from the outset, when “from bashfulness or fashion” she kept a veil over her face (46). While Isabella styles her marriage with Sir Condy as a love match, her passion for him is soon over. When she complains about the smell of his whiskey drinking and when Castle Rackrent is in ruins, she stipulates that she did not envisage a lifetime of poverty and removes to her family of origin. Thus, while professing to be interesting and cultured, Isabella is in reality superficial and hypocritical. Her brush with death, when her jaunt carriage is overturned and she is dragged by her petticoat, suits her dramatic nature. She survives the accident but is disfigured. She also goes to court for her share of the Rackrents’ fortune.