Hollywood actors Sarah Jessica Parker and husband Matthew Broderick are carrying out a significant renovation on their Co Donegal holiday home.
The home, on the outskirts of the village of Kilcar, was bought by Broderick’s family more than 40 years ago. The Sex and the City star and her husband regularly holiday there with their family.
The couple received planning permission for their design in 2015, and work began over the summer. Much of the new buildings are complete, and the roof is being completed.
The new design includes four bedrooms, a den, living area, a new kitchen complete with courtyard linking the old and new designs. The new kitchen will comprise all the floor space of the original cottage.
The couple decided not to add an extension on both sides of the traditional cottage.
The architects for the design, which includes a corrugated roof and traditional sash windows, are Dublin-based company Donaghy and Dimond.
The planning application states: “This cottage and outbuildings belongs to a family with a residence in this place for more than forty years. The cottage has been kept with its surrounding outbuildings and gardens and meadows around the house.
“They wish to continue this tradition from one generation to the next by conserving the original and upgrading the existing accommodation.
“The plan is to give a new lease of sustainable life to this homestead.”
The scale of the renovation suggests the Brodericks may plan on spending more time in Donegal in the coming years.
During a recent visit to Donegal, Parker took to Instagram to post a picture of herself and her family - including son James and seven-year-old twins Marion and Tabitha - doing a 1,000-piece jigsaw on a rainy afternoon.
Parker also wrote of her love of Irish food including lamb cutlets, spuds and Kerrygold butter.
Broderick has said he is very thankful to his parents for putting the money together to buy their Irish holiday getaway. “My parents bought a place there when I was about eight. And my sisters and I have inherited it, and I’ve taken my kids. It’s up near Killybegs and Kilcar.”
“Donegal, it’s unbelievable. It gave me a whole new childhood in a way. I grew up in New York City, I was born and raised here, so the fact that my parents managed to put the money together to get us there was a great gift to us.”
“You know the landscape, the hiking, but it’s also the people there that I grew up knowing. Real farmers who worked the hay in the summer and milked cows. I really, really got to know my neighbours, and that just doesn’t happen in the same way here in the US. We just really felt welcomed there. It’s another culture, a wonderful place.”
