Although I didn't say so unequivocally back in those days, there is no doubt at all that there was no supernatural element in Padraig Colum's poem; nor was there in the older song he based it on. 'Dead love' was introduced (possibly by accident, possibly by design) in a commercial recording by the famous lyric tenor John McCormack. Margaret Barry learned the song from that record and introduced it to the folk song revival, which adopted it enthusiastically.

Ever since then, people have imagined all manner of extravagant things about it; the many other discussions here (almost all of which contain more information than this old thread that Owen has dragged out of the merciful oblivion of the grave) are full of the most extraordinary nonsense, though real facts are there too, if you are patient enough to sift through all the rubbish.

Colum lived into the 1970s. I still wonder if anybody ever asked him what he thought about the whole thing; or if he ever received any royalties from any of the vast number of revival performers who have recorded arrangements of his song over the last half-century. Scarcely one of them has had the courtesy to credit him, though his authorship of the song has been a matter of public record since it was first published in 1909.