Tom Hartley

Tom Hartley
53rd Lord Mayor of Belfast
In office 2008–2009
Preceded by	Jim Rodgers
Succeeded by	Naomi Long
Councillor on Belfast City Council
In office 1993 – Incumbent
Constituency	Lower Falls, Belfast West
Personal details
Born	Belfast
Political party	Sinn Féin
Website	www.sinnfein.ie

Tom Hartley (born 1945 or 1946) 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 imprisoned in 1978. During the 1981 Irish hunger strike, Hartley chaired the POW Committee.^[1]

Hartley became active in Sinn Féin, serving as the General Secretary in the mid-1980s and as the Chair in the early 1990s.^[1] In 1993, he was elected to Belfast City Council for the Lower Falls, and has held his seat at each subsequent election.^[2]

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.^[3]

In 2008, Hartley became the second Sinn Féin Lord Mayor of Belfast.^[1] In his spare time, he conducts tours of Belfast City Cemetery^[4] and authored the 2006 book Written in Stone: The History of Belfast City Cemetery.^[5]

References

1. "Sinn Féin's Tom Hartley elected Mayor of Belfast", An Phoblacht, 5 June 2008
2. Belfast City Council Elections 1993-2005, Northern Ireland Elections
3. The 1994 European elections, Northern Ireland Elections
4. Laura Friel, "A winter's tale", An Phoblacht, 16 December 1999
5. Written in Stone, Belfast City Council