I've been listening (belatedly) to some of the recordings from last September's online Frank Harte Festival. One of the songs here is The Leaving of Limerick. That has prompted me to re-read and now revive this thread.

I am no further in getting the song ready to sing than I was 5½ years ago. Besides the confusing wording in verse 2 discussed above, I'm also uncomfortable with "as me and my love passed on" in verse 1. It doesn't rhyme and, although there are other songs with a narrator recounting a dialogue between lovers, it's very surprising to have the narrator's own lover present as well, the more so as the latter person gets no further mention.

Having regard also to the fact that the Assembly Mall was renamed to Charlotte's Quay (I think in the mid-1800s but I now can't find the reference), I've provisionally changed the opening lines to:
As I roved out one evening, it was down by Charlotte's Quay
I heard two lovers speaking/talking and they paid no heed to me.

Richard