Tom Hartley has held many roles in his life: republican activist, political advisor, city councillor, Lord Mayor and, in recent decades, local historian and tour guide to Belfast’s cemeteries.
Entering his ninth decade, Tom decided to finish up with the last of these positions, giving his last tour of the Belfast City Cemetery to a packed crowd during Féile an Phobail last month.
Speaking a few days after that tour, on a warm afternoon in Cultúrann on the Falls Road, he explains that he’s relieved to finish a “long journey.”
“It had to come to an end”, he says, “it’s over now for me, that part of my life. Old age, bad feet: there’s some things you can’t avoid, but that’s okay.”
Guiding groups around the cemetery was certainly physical work. His final tour took over two and a half hours, during which time he walked around the whole of the large cemetery, up and down a hill, on a very hot summer’s day.
Continue @ Belfast Telegraph.
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