Also thanks to Barrie Roberts for the story of Billy in the Bowl. Apparently his story originally appeared in a book Oxmantown and its Environs by Nathanael Burton, 1845 and it is retold in Life in Old Dublin, Chapter 8 by James Collin, 1913.

It seems the original Billy in the Bowl was a legless beggar of Stonybatter in the 1780's who moved about in a large bowl partially made of iron. He would hide and cry for assistance from a passer-by who he then robbed. He was said to have murdered some of his victims, but he escaped suspicion until he was unwise enough to try to assault a pair of stout Dublin gentlewomen.

Matthew Edwards