Mark Langhammer

Mark Langhammer is a Northern Irish trade unionist, employed as Director of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and elected onto the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions 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.

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. In 1989, he stood in the European Parliament election 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 as a Newtownabbey Labour candidate for Macedon electoral area in 1993. 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 Irish Labour Party to do so. 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, holding that the set-up for them was "institutionalised sectarianism".

Irish Labour Party In 2003, the Irish Labour Party 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 Irish Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC), but was co-opted on the proposal of Kathleen Lynch. In September that same year a pipe bomb was left under Langhammer's car outside his Whiteabbey home although it exploded in the early hours with no one hurt.

Other interests From 1994 until 1998, Langhammer was the Chair of the Northern Ireland Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux. He was subsequently the Chair of Playboard NI.

Personal life Langhammer's grandfather was Franz Langhammer, a socialist councillor in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Franz Langhammer was forced to flee the country when the Nazis 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.