He was a member of the Irish arts organisation Aosdána. Robinson won two Irish Book Awards: the 2007 Argosy Irish Non-Fiction Book of the Year for "Connemara: Listening to the Wind", and the 2011 International Education Services Best Irish-Published Book of the Year for "Connemara: A Little Gaelic Kingdom". Robinson died at St Pancras Hospital on 3 April 2020 at the age of 85, as a result of COVID-19 during the pandemic in the United Kingdom. Robinson died two weeks after the death of his wife and collaborator Máiréad Robinson.