Definitely not Irish. But not Yorkshire or North Midlands/ Notts either.

Though, even if he was a real person (there is reference to a Robert or Robin Hood of Loxley in the York Pipe Rolls of the early 1200s) he certainly wouldn't have spoken with either accent.

As a Yorkshire lad born and bred an easy walk for a 5 year old from Robin Hood's grave near Clifton, I was brought up in the certainty that Robin was a Yorkshireman...after all, Loxley's in Yorkshire, he's supposed to have died at the hand of the Abbess of Kirklees (near Clifton, in Yorkshire), someone of the name is mentioned in the York Pipe Rolls, Little John is supposed to have "kept kine at Hartshead" (right next to Clifton) and is supposedly buried in Hathersage, on the Yorkshire/ Derbyshire border. Sherwood at the time would have extended over much of Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.

So we always felt that he was "ours" and that the midlanders had somehow managed to "steal" him :-)