Itchy nuts aside … I just ran across this YT vid of the Bothies, where ( at 4:18 ) Tríona announces the tune as The “Fries” Britches. So now my world is shattered.
That is the usual pronunciation in Ireland and probably in England when the term was common. You can bring forward as many “freeze” pronunciations found in as many dictionaries as you like, it’s “fries” for me.
I started my career as a lexicographer and have seen pronunciation editors at work on a major English dictionary project. I can assure you that they are not infallible and that very often they merely copy what they find elsewhere, esp. in the case of words that neither they nor anyone else alive has ever heard spoken.
In any case it is worth remembering that, in English at any rate, all modern dictionaries are essentially descriptive rather than prescriptive in function. Which means that you can’t tell people that their usage is wrong just because a dictionary says different. [Although that often doesn’t stop me from doing so 
]
I’ll go with what Eamonn Cotter says because, heck, he’s Eamonn Cotter!
He sounds none too sure about it, unlike Séamus Creagh.
Nobody would have started calling the tune “the Friar’s britches” if it were pronounced freeze, now would they?