Sex in the City star Sarah Jessica Parker and husband Matthew Broderick have begun a major renovation of their Co Donegal home.

The house, which lies on the outskirts of the village of Kilcar, was bought by Broderick’s family more than 40 years ago and remains a holiday retreat for the Hollywood couple, The Irish Times reports.

They received planning permission for their new design in 2015.

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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.”

Dublin-based company Donaghy and Dimond were the architects for the new design, which includes four bedrooms, living area, den, kitchen, and a courtyard.

Work on the house began this summer.

Parker has written of her love of Irish food and recently posted Instagram pics of their family at the home (the couple have a son, James, and twins Marion and Tabitha).

“We would be delighted to decamp to Ireland. Move the children, put them in school there, have tea every day, a proper fry. It’s just an exquisite, beautiful, relaxing, wonderful place for ourselves and for our children,” the actress and fashion maven told the Irish Independent.

Broderick has said of their Irish home: "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.”

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“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 neighbors, 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.”