Oh dear. I've been singing this song for nearly 40 years. I learned it from an Ulster woman who claimed it was an Irish song. All this time I've been singing:
I wish I was a-whaling gone
Far across the icy sea
Sailing o'er the deepest ocean
Where love nor care never parted be.

I've always argued that this one-off reference to whaling made it more likely to be a Scottish or Canadian song. Now I find I'm in the land of the Mondegreen.

Unless, of course, I've been right all this time and everyone else in the world is wrong!

dj

(btw I'm not going to change now - whaling makes more sense to me than Ingo)