Birr Castle's owners plan to sell €3.5m private box at Royal Albert Hall

The owners of Birr Castle, Brendan and Alison Parsons, are in the news this week after it emerged that they are selling their private box in London's world-famous Royal Albert Hall for £3m (€3.5m).

The news was first reported in The Times of London, which stated that Box 14 in Royal Albert Hall had been kept in the Parsons family for just over 150 years.

The couple are now reportedly selling it because they don't get to use it as often as they would like.

Mr Parsons is the 7th Earl of Rosse and his great-great-grandfather, the 3rd Earl of Rosse, is understood to have paid £100 for the private box, with a 999-year lease, in the 19th century.

Ownership of the private box at the venue comes with an annual bill of around €16,000 as a contribution to the maintenance of the Royal Albert Hall, which is one of the world's most well-known concert venues.

Speaking to the Times, Martin Bikhit, a luxury property expert at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices in London, described a private box at the Royal Albert Hall as a "must-have asset" for wealthy families in the British capital.