His father, Andrew Robinson, was a middle-class stockbroker who in 1892 decided to become a clergyman in the Church of Ireland in the small Ballymoney parish, near Ballineen in West Cork.

In August 1907, his interest in the theatre began after he went to see an Abbey production of plays by W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory at the Cork Opera House.

Shortly after joining the Abbey Theatre, he was sent to London for three months to train under George Bernard Shaw as his assistant while he was directing Misalliance.

Drama at Inish, which was presented in London and on Broadway as Is Life Worth Living?, was revived as part of the 2011 season at the Shaw Festival (Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada), with Mary Haney as Lizzie Twohig.

[citation needed] Robinson married artist Dorothy Travers Smith, the Abbey Theatre stage designer.