Coincidently, I was at a gig last night which featured the Newfoundland group "A Crowd of Bold Sharemen" According to Jim Payne, who sang "Lukey's Boat" with the band last night , it was written by a local NFL. woman (Can't remember her name, but he did mention it, i think) to take a rise out of the above mentioned Lukey. Then Lukey by way of kicking back at the woman, added the last verses.
A couple of years ago I managed to buy both the Omar Blondhal's and Alan Mills' albums, mentioned in the postings above. The Mills album also had a great book on the sources of the songs etc. Alan Mills album was certainly a great collection of songs, but his accent sounded false to me and tended to spoil the overall enjoyment of the album.