A long way back to Tipp for Tristram Shandy author

WHEN it came to writing novels, Laurence Sterne, born in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, 300 years ago this week, certainly enjoyed experimenting. Pages strewn with long dashes, asterisks and the odd hand sign; a torn out chapter; two pages completely smudged with printer’s ink; and a section playfully left blank for the reader to write their own character description.

Tradition has it that Sterne was born in a house in Mary Street, and later lived in a lane off Clonmel High Street, close to the West Gate.

His father was a British army officer, and during Sterne’s infancy the family stayed in barracks in Wicklow and Dublin. At 10 years old he was taken to stay with his uncle in Yorkshire, and was never to see his father again as Sterne Snr died in Jamaica.