It's known as the marble city, but Kilkenny may face the prospect of becoming a mere town.
A provision in the Local Government Bill defines five urban centres as cities but Kilkenny is not among them.
The five - Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford - have been designated as major growth centres and would have the right to elect mayors directly. What the Bill means for Kilkenny's city status is open to interpretation.
Fianna Fail TD Mr John McGuinness, from Kilkenny, insisted that nothing in the Bill can remove the area's status and Kilkenny, which was granted a city charter by King James I in 1609, would remain a city.
However, he said he would lobby the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey, to have Kilkenny added to the Bill as a municipal city.
"If we were good enough for King James in the 1600s we should be good enough for Noel Dempsey in 2000," Mr McGuinness said.
"Once a charter has been given to you it can't be taken back, but the time has come when we should be regarded as a fully-fledged city under municipal law."
However, the Mayor of Kilkenny, Mr Tony Patterson, said the Bill would have an impact on the area.
He said the city charter had "no legal standing whatsoever" and Kilkenny would, under the legislation, be run by a town council like 79 other urban centres.
"It seems to me that the situation is changed when there's going to be a law there which defines five particular places as cities and Kilkenny isn't one of them," he said.
Kilkenny would continue to call itself a city but documents from the local authority, for example, would bear the words "Kilkenny Town Council".
The depth of feeling on the issue can be gauged by the lead story in last week's Kilkenny People.
Under the headline "No Surrender", the story declared: "The Cats are bracing themselves for a Titanic struggle. They aim to defeat the bureaucrats who want to wipe out 400 years of the city's history."
The marble town? Doesn't quite have the same ring to it.