The ironic quote:

“My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors because she had brought me up “by hand.” Having at that time to find out for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up by hand”

The ironic statement is ‘being brought up by Hand’ the connotation being brought up by hand meant that he was brought up by a person who works hard for their family. Dickens uses the quote as a denotation which means Pip was raised by being hit by his sister