I do a very shortened version - I've got it down to 19 verses without losing any essential story, and I do it at a furious pace, over an almost rock riff (nearly 120 bpm as the disco boys would count it).   Greatly aided on the day (Saturday) by a bodhran player wh kept a driving rhythm across the way the guitar shifts from the on-beat to the off-beat halfway through each stanza.

Locally (before he moved away) Paul Hurst used to do it much more the way that Martin Carthy did it, with all the clever finger-style stuff..