This was one of two songs I learnt from my Grandfather when I was a very young boy in County Antrim in the 1950s. The words I learnt are just as noted above as being from Herbert Hughes in 1909 volume One of Irish Country Songs.
The phrase 'dear knows' was, and is, in common usage. It was always sung as it being a woman's words. It was entirely normal for men to sing songs where the words were written as coming from a woman. Indeed, it was sometimes thought inappropriate for women to be singing too passionate a song.