Yes, they have a-changed. The Irish version (with the guns and drums) got treated as an anti-war song in the 60's because anti-war is what was wanted and because it was inconceivable to anybody singing such things then that it was possible for anyone to be anything _but_ lugubrious at the havoc wreaked upon this young man by Mr. Johnson's immoral war.

That last verse, I take it, was added by someone who could see that some of the words do not quite fit the proper anti-war sentiment. But, the song makes perfect sense if you understand that the girl singing is simply delighted at what's happened to this fellow who got her pregnant and then ran off to the army. She's gloating and rubbing it in.

If you see her singing with malicious glee, that he's got what he deserved, it all makes sense. If you think she really is a (conventional) "doleful damsel", you have to suppose her extraordinarily tactless. That tactlessness used to bother me in the 60's, when I was trying to hear it as anti-war. No matter how sadly and lovingly they sang it, the inappropriate words came through. Then, one day, I thought about that running away or skeedaddling or whatever, and it came to me what he did and what she thought of it.