A fascinating and useful thread -- mudcat at its best. Apologies if any of the comments below repeat what's been said -- I don't think they do, but it's a long thread.

A version of this song, with full lyrics and score with chords, is in the book A Bonnie Bunch of Roses by Dan Milner and Paul Kaplan (Oak Publications 1983.) There is a brief introductory note there which doesn't, I think, give any information that hasn't been mentioned above, but it does say that the version in the book is taken "from the singing of Ewan MacColl, with additional verses from other sources," implying that this collated text may be different from those found elsewhere. That note also refers to a recorded version on MacColl's Haul on the Bowlin', a 1962 LP, though according to the Ewan MacColl site he also recorded it elsewhere.

The song seems to me to use a technique relatively rare in English-language folk music, using a rather jaunty melody as a setting for tragic lyrics.

I haven't seen a definitive statement of the provenance of the air, but to me it sounds definitely Irish, though mostly attested from North America. I wonder if it might be found in old song books under a different name.

I've adapted the tune for a musical setting of an A. E. Housman poem, here.

Jon Corelis