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The Irish- and British-English phrase more kicks than halfpence means: more harshness than kindness.

This phrase occurs, for example, in the following letter to the Editor, published in the Retford, Gainsborough & Worksop Times (Retford, Nottinghamshire, England) of Thursday 22^nd April 1999 [page 15, column 4]:

Good show

SIR—The District Council Parks Department has had more kicks than halfpence in recent months so I would like to congratulate them on the splendid floral display round the town War Memorial in the Market Square.
It really is beautiful, giving the war memorial a worthy setting and also a great tribute to the men who planned and set out the flowers.
Well done, Parks Department. Please keep it up.

These are, in chronological order, the earliest occurrences of the phrase more kicks than halfpence that I have found:

1-: From A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (London: S. Hooper, 1785), by the English antiquary and lexicographer Francis Grose (1731-1791) [page 110, s.v. Monkey]:
—The expression monkey’s allowance alludes to performing monkeys, who picked up coins for their masters but often received only kicks in return:

Monkey’s allowance; more kicks than halfpence.

2-: From a news-item about the situation in Revolutionary France, published in the Evening Mail (London, England) of Monday 18^th March 1793 [page 2, column 2]:

All the exertions of Paris and the departments, for recruiting the army, have proved insufficient. […] It is not easy to find men who will quit their habitations and expose themselves on the frontiers, to yet greater hazards than they already experience.
[…]
[…] In short, the late successes of the Austrians and Prussians in Belgia, who give no quarter to the patriots, are well calculated to deter others from taking up a trade, where to use a vulgar expression, they may get more kicks than halfpence.

3-: From a correspondence from Dublin, Ireland, dated Saturday 24^th December 1796, published in The Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland) of Monday 2^nd January 1797 [page 3, column 2]:

We have had many rumours of invasion here, and the apprehension of one has produced the effect of the most essential steps being taken to frustrate such an attempt, should it take place. […] This day, […] an officer arrived […] with intelligence to Government of a fleet, consisting of 26 large ships, being seen in Bantry Bay. […] Many suppose they are the French fleet […] However it turns out, if our friends at home are staunch, the Monsieurs [sic] are likely to get more kicks than halfpence, as we say in Ireland.

4-: From The Star (London, England) of Thursday 14^th October 1802 [page 3, column 4]:
—Bartholomew Fair, in London, was infamous for riotousness and debauchery:

The Bucks of Brighton have not been a little amused by the adventures of the celebrated Cyprian, Mrs. P——, in returning to her house, near Fitzroy-square, London. […] About midnight, on Wednesday, in high spirits and jovial, she mounted the coach-box with coachy, put the child she keeps into the chariot, and set off for town full gallop, the footman following with the saddle horses. Arriving at the turnpike on this side Cuckfield, the carriage passed through, and the footman, with the horses, was left to pay turnpike. The footman said he had no money; and, rather insolently, that he could not pay.—The turnpike man, who is a most resolute dog, made up to the carriage and insisted on payment; but Mrs. P—— seemed inclined to give him “more kicks than halfpence;” she poured on him a torrent of abuse, decorated by those flowers of oratory which are used at Bartholomew Fair, swearing if she had a pistol she would blow his brains out. The turnpike man, though stout-hearted, was not a little astonished to see so fair a lady in so fine an equipage, so well up to his own slang; and fearing the odds were too much against him to enter into a contest with the baggage and escort, he retreated home.

5-: From an account of a trial held at the Tribunal of Correctional Police of Rouen, in Normandy, published in The London Packet and Lloyd’s Evening Post (London, England) of Wednesday 18^th February 1818 [page 4, column 4]:

Madeleine Joly deposed, that she had resided several years at Vihiers, opposite Delaunay, the shoemaker; that Mathurin Bruneau, his brother-in-law, lived with him in 1796, and had learned the trade of a shoemaker; but being unwilling to work, he got more kicks than halfpence.