Brendan Parsons, 7th Earl of Rosse

[2] Lord Rosse was the eldest son of Laurence Michael Harvey Parsons, 6th Earl of Rosse, and Anne (née Messel, mother of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon by an earlier marriage).

From 1979 to 2007, Lord and Lady Rosse facilitated many decades of research by A. P. W. Malcomson, former director of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, and latterly sponsored by the Irish Manuscripts Commission, to enable the production, for the first time, of a comprehensive Calendar of the Rosse Papers in 2008.

[citation needed] The archive is held in the Muniment Room of Birr Castle.

The Calendar is of great value to researchers delving into the history of the Parsons family, the English settlement of the Irish midlands in the 17th century, the Williamite wars, early Irish nationalism, the Royal Navy in the eighteenth century, nineteenth-century science and astronomy, and the fate of the Irish landed gentry in the early twentieth century.

[citation needed] Lord Rosse appeared in Great British Railway Journeys, Antiques Road Trip and in an episode of Lords & Ladies that focused on Birr Castle.