Tom Hartley | |
|---|---|
 Hartley in 2016 | |
| 65th Lord Mayor of Belfast | |
| In office 1 June 2008 –1 June 2009 | |
| Preceded by | Jim Rodgers |
| Succeeded by | Naomi Long |
| Belfast City Councillor | |
| In office 19 May 1993 –4 September 2013 | |
| Preceded by | Seán McKnight |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Constituency | Lower Falls |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 1945 (age 79–80) Falls Road,Belfast,Northern Ireland |
| Political party | Sinn Féin |
| Occupation | Irish Republican activist and author |
Tom Hartley (born 1945 [1] ) is a historian and Irish republican politician. Hartley grew up in the Falls Road area of Belfast and became a republican activist in the late 1960s. In 1970,he was imprisoned in the Crumlin Road gaol for ten months for riotous behaviour;he was again detained in 1978. During the 1981 Irish hunger strike,Hartley chaired the POW Committee. [2]
Hartley became active in Sinn Féin,serving as the General Secretary in the mid-1980s and the Chairperson in the early 1990s. [2] [3] In 1993,he was elected to Belfast City Council for the Lower Falls and held his seat in each subsequent election until 2013 when he stood down. [4] [5] Hartley was one of three Sinn Féin candidates in Northern Ireland at the European election in 1994. Although he took only 3.8% of the votes cast and was not elected,he did receive more votes than the party's other candidates. [6] In 2008,Hartley became the second Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast. [2]
In his spare time,he conducts tours of Belfast City Cemetery [7] and authored the book series The History of Belfast,Written in Stone. [1] [8] [9] [10]
