I don't have the recording and haven't met him in ages but I'm certain that Al sang "corpse" when I heard him.

The air - which has not been mentioned - is The Coolin. Words for this are something of a mystery - I believe that no "original" words are known, instead there have been several attempts at writing verses for the air in Irish and in English and some of them have been translated into the other language.

It's my memory that the words under discussion are by Donagh McDonagh. Frank O'Connor wrote (or translated) another set.