Mark Langhammer is a

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

trade unionist, employed as Director of the

Association of Teachers and Lecturers The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) was a trade union, teachers' union and professional association, affiliated to the Trades Union Congress, in the United Kingdom representing educators from nursery and primary education to further ...

and elected onto the Northern Ireland Committee of the

Irish Congress of Trade Unions The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (often abbreviated to just Congress or ICTU), formed in 1959 by the merger of the Irish Trades Union Congress (founded in 1894) and the Congress of Irish Unions (founded in 1945), is a national trade union centr ...

in 2008, being re-elected in 2010. A former politician in Northern Ireland, he was previously a prominent northern-based member of the

Irish Labour Party The Labour Party ( ga, Páirtí an Lucht Oibre, literally "Party of the Working People") is a centre-left and social-democratic political party in the Republic of Ireland. Founded on 28 May 1912 in Clonmel, County Tipperary, by James Connolly, ...

Political career

Early career

Initially a community activist in North Belfast's Rathcoole housing estate, Langhammer first became involved in politics in the 1980s, joining the Campaign for Labour Representation, which aimed to persuade the British Labour Party to organise in Northern Ireland.Labour Party co-opts Langhammer to NEC
", Labour Party, 20 June 2005 In 1989, he stood in the

European Parliament election Elections to the European Parliament take place every five years by universal adult suffrage; with more than 400 million people eligible to vote, they are considered the second largest democratic elections in the world after India's. Unti ...

as a "Labour Representation" candidate, polling 3,540 votes.

Newtownabbey

Langhammer stood unsuccessfully for Newtownabbey Borough Council in Doagh Road in 1985 for the 'All Night Party'. Langhammer was elected to

Newtownabbey Borough Council Newtownabbey Borough Council was a Local Authority in County Antrim in Northern Ireland, on the north shore of Belfast Lough just immediately north of Belfast. The Council merged with Antrim Borough Council in April 2015 under local government r ...

as a ''Newtownabbey Labour'' candidate for Macedon electoral area in 1993.Newtownabbey Borough Council Elections 1993 – 2005
ARK – Access Research Knowledge The Campaign for Labour Representation disbanded, having accepted that the British Labour Party had no intention of organising in Northern Ireland, and Langhammer instead began lobbying the

to do so.

Labour coalition

Langhammer was initially recognised as the leader of the

Labour coalition The Labour Coalition was an electoral coalition in Northern Ireland of socialist and labour movement, labour groups, formed to stand in the 1996 Northern Ireland Forum elections.Northern Ireland Forum The Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was a body set up in 1996 as part of a process of negotiations that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The forum was elected, with five members being elected for each Westmin ...

. He headed the group's list in the Belfast North constituency, but this took only 571 votes, and he was not elected. He also took third position on the Coalition's regional list, but only the first two candidates were successful. Amid turmoil in the Coalition, Langhammer refused to take part in the talks which led to the

Good Friday Agreement The Good Friday Agreement (GFA), or Belfast Agreement ( ga, Comhaontú Aoine an Chéasta or ; Ulster-Scots: or ), is a pair of agreements signed on 10 April 1998 that ended most of the violence of The Troubles, a political conflict in No ...

, holding that the set-up for them was "institutionalised sectarianism". Langhammer held his council seat in 1997 and 2001 before standing down in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discovered in ...

. In 2002, he was injured in a

pipe bomb A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device which uses a tightly sealed section of pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple low explosives can be used to produce a relatively huge explos ...

attack, which police attributed to loyalist

paramilitaries A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

Irish Labour Party

In 2003, the

began admitting members in the north, and the following year, Langhammer became the Chair of the Northern Ireland Labour Forum, the local branch of the party. In 2005, he was unsuccessful in elections to the

National Executive Committee (NEC), but was co-opted on the proposal of Kathleen Lynch. Langhammer stood down from the NEC in 2008. Langhammer unsuccessfully proposed a motion for the party to contest council elections in Northern Ireland at the 2009

conference, which was defeated. Although remaining a Labour Party member, Langhammer is no longer active in the Party, or its Northern Ireland Constituency Party.

Clash with UDA

In 2001 Langhammer campaigned to have a permanent

Police Service of Northern Ireland The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI; ga, Seirbhís Póilíneachta Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ') is the police, police force that serves Northern Ireland. It is the successor to the Royal Ulster Constabu ...

presence established in the loyalist Rathcoole area, where the South East Antrim Brigade of the

Ulster Defence Association The Ulster Defence Association (UDA) is an Ulster loyalism, Ulster loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 as an umbrella group for various loyalist groups and Timeline of Ulster Defence Association act ...

(UDA) was particularly noted for racketeering and violence. Following Langhammer's campaigning the police agreed to establish a clinic at a local community centre although this initiative raised the ire of the local UDA Brigadier John Gregg who saw it as a threat to his criminal empire. In September that same year a pipe bomb was left under Langhammer's car outside his

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home although it exploded in the early hours with no one hurt.McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 349

Other interests

From 1994 until 1998, Langhammer was the Chair of the Northern Ireland Association of

Citizens Advice Bureau Citizens AdviceCitizens Advice is the operating name of The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux which is the umbrella charity for a wider network of local advice centres. The abbreviation CitA is sometimes used to refer to this nation ...

. He was subsequently the Chair of Playboard NI. He is a Director of

Crusaders F.C. Crusaders Football Club is a professional Northern Irish football club, playing in the NIFL Premiership, highest level of the Irish League. The club, founded in 1898, is based in north Belfast and plays its home matches at Seaview. Crusader ...

Personal life

Langhammer's grandfather was Franz Langhammer, a socialist councillor in the

Sudetenland The Sudetenland ( , ; Czech and sk, Sudety) is the historical German name for the northern, southern, and western areas of former Czechoslovakia which were inhabited primarily by Sudeten Germans. These German speakers had predominated in the ...

region of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. Franz Langhammer was forced to flee the country when the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

invaded in 1938 and he opted to move to Northern Ireland as he felt his background as a printer would help him to obtain work in the then thriving textile industry.McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', pp. 348–349

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Langhammer, Mark Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Members of Newtownabbey Borough Council Labour Party (Ireland) politicians Politicians from Northern Ireland Irish people of Czech descent