Robert Mizzell has climbed the ranks of the Irish country music scene to become one of our biggest stars as a solo artist and member of supergroup The Three Amigos. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, he spent most of his childhood in foster care as a result of abuse and neglect in the family home. The abuse might have led to a dark, troubled, dead-end adult life for Robert had social services not put him into the care of the foster parents he still calls Mama and Papa Courtney. Here, in the first of a two-part interview with Eddie Rowley, Robert talks about his turbulent childhood and tells how a stint in the American army also shaped his life. He reveals how falling in love with an Irish woman led to him moving to Ireland 30 years ago at the age of 20, and he tells the personal story of his four-times-married father Richard, who died from Covid in January 2021.

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