There was an upset at a Labour Party selection convention in Kilkenny last night when a nephew of outgoing TD Séamus Pattison was defeated.
Michael O'Brien and Jim Townsend have been selected as the Labour Party candidates for the next general election in the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency.
Separate conventions for each county were organised in Kilkenny yesterday to ensure that one candidate from each county was nominated.
In a closely fought Kilkenny contest, Michael O'Brien, a member of the county council for the Thomastown district, caused a major upset by defeating Eoin Pattison by 65 votes to 58 in the third count.
Mr O'Brien (63) has served as a member of Kilkenny County Council for 20 years and first got involved in politics when he joined the British Labour Party as an emigrant in London in 1960.
He was vice president of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe and leader of the Socialist Group from 1994-1999.
Mr Pattison (26) is a nephew of leas-ceann comhairle, Séamus Pattison, who was first elected in 1961 and who will retire at the next election.
The Trinity graduate with "strong Kilkenny roots" had moved to the constituency last year from Dublin to work as his uncle's parliamentary assistant.
He said he would continue to do that job but did not rule out the possibility of seeking a Labour nomination in the future. The result ends for now the Pattison family's long domination of Labour politics in Kilkenny.
Mr Pattison's grandfather, James Pattison was also a Labour TD. Some local party members had privately admitted to being unhappy at the prospect of the seat passing to "a third generation".
In the Carlow convention, a former senator, Jim Townsend of Tinryland, was selected unopposed when William Paton withdrew his name from the ballot.
Mr O'Brien and Mr Townsend both unsuccessfully contested the 2002 general election when Séamus Pattison, as ceann comhairle, was returned automatically. Mr Townsend lost out in the final count by a few hundred votes to MJ Nolan of Fianna Fáil who is the only sitting TD based in Co Carlow.