Ronan Keating went to school there. Mel Gibson used it for a film set. It was home to writer Mary Lavin, and the designer Sybil Connolly was discovered there.
For a small area, the Meath parish of Kilmessan and Dunsany has many famous links. These links are celebrated in a new book, On the banks of the Skane: a millennium memoir of Kilmessan and Dunsany, by journalist John Donohoe and John Byrne and funded by the National Millennium Committee.
The parish is at the foot of the Hill of Tara and has attracted its fair share of interest from Hollywood over the years.
The abbeys at Dunsany and Bective were used as a location for the film Braveheart while The Magnificent Ambersons, a remake of the Orson Welles classic, was filmed at Dunsany Castle last year for release later this year.
Rock Hudson came to Bective in 1955 to play a swashbuckling role in Captain Lightfoot, which told the tale of a 19th century Irish rebel. Sybil Connolly's Dunsany connection was made when Lady Dunsany hosted a fashion show for her at Dunsany Castle for American buyers. Photographs from the event were used on the cover of Life magazine in 1953 and proved to be her launching pad. Mary Lavin's time at Bective is recalled in the book by her daughter Caroline Walsh, literary editor of The Irish Times.
Meanwhile, the generosity of former Taoiseach Mr Jack Lynch is recalled by Mrs Bridie O'Loughlin, whose husband Tom drove Mr Lynch for 25 years. When her mother was dying, Mr Lynch sent his State car to take her home from hospital, telling her the car was as much at her disposal as the Taoiseach's.
Gerry Stembridge, who recently filmed Black Day at Black Rock in Kilmessan, is returning to launch On the Banks of the Skane in Bellinter House on Sunday.