meaning and origin of ‘put that in your pipe and smoke it’

The colloquial phrase put that in your pipe and smoke it and its variants mean accept or put up with what has been said or done, even if it is unwelcome.

Its earliest recorded occurrence is Irish English and is associated with the obsolete figurative sense to consider of the verb smoke; it is from the beginning of a “curious and entertaining letter […] supposed to be written by a penitent rebel peasant”, published by James Alexander in the Appendix to Some Account of the First Apparent Symptoms of the Late Rebellion in the County of Kildare (Dublin: Printed by John Jones, 1800)—this letter “was originally designed for the Waterford Chronicle”:

I think I can give the peephill that reeds the Water-fart Chronickhill, sum hints vorth shmoaking; and af yew don’t prent them, fwhy—Na bocklesh! That’s all! Put that in your pipe and shmoak it!      in standard English: I think I can give the people that read the Waterford Chronicle some hints worth smoking [= considering]; and if you don’t print them, why—Never mind! That’s all! Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

The earliest occurrence of put that in your pipe and smoke it that I have found is from a theatrical review published in The Public Ledger, and Daily Advertiser (London, England) of Friday 27th December 1822; the phrase is associated with a probably stereotyped Irish character 1 and with the working class, who occupied the pit and galleries (cf. the phrase to play to the gallery):

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