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| Above: "Billy in the Bowl" by Shota Kotake, part of the @DublinCanvas series of painted traffic-light control boxes |
One of Dublin's most infamous killers is surely Billy in the Bowl, aka the Stoneybatter Strangler. He's a local ledge in our hood, as the young ones say.
But this being eighteenth-century folklore, bear in mind that the following facts might get blurry here and there...
Billy Davis was born without legs, this much is true. As a young man he would propel himself around the cobbled streets of Dublin in a large bowl, which may have been made of iron, wood or copper (depending on which version of the story). And it had two thick leather straps to go over his broad shoulders. Not sure about the straps but he definitely had two shoulders.
Anyway. He would scooter and skitter about in his bowl, begging for money around Stoneybatter and Grangegorman in the 1780s, and in local fairs and along the canals, as you do.
By all accounts Billy was a good looking lad, with curly black hair and massive arms that a prizefighter would be proud of, and this handsome devil was well able to charm young women into parting with a few
But with his fondness for the gargle and gambling, Billy decided that robbing might be more lucrative than chugging. So he hit upon the following modus operandi, or M.O. as they say on Taggart: jump out of your bowl, hide behind a hedge or suchlike, lure unsuspecting servant girls (why are they always referred to as girls instead of women?), grab them, drag them into the bushes and rob them of their jewellery and purses and make a speedy getaway. In your bowl.
Then before you knew it Billy added one more item to the M.O.: strangulation. And also before you knew it, one murder had become two, street patrols were everywhere and on the lookout for the serial killer they dubbed the Stoneybatter Strangler. Little did anybody suspect that wee Billy Davis might be their man.
The massive manhunt reached its height in 1786, which just happens to be the same year that the city's first organised police force was established, the Dublin Metropolitan Police.
Billy was eventually apprehended that year after attacking one woman too many, not noticing that she had a female companion. A companion who had a hat pin that she stuck in his eye.
A large crowd gathered as Billy was carted - literally - off to the Bridewell. He was convicted to a life sentence of hard labour. Some stories have him ending up in Green Street jail, where he died and was buried in an unmarked grave. Others tell of him getting early release from prison, because Billy was only a Poor Unfortunate Cratur...
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Here's a fine version of the story by someone who specialises in such matters, the writer and musician Bobby Aherne. Bobby is in suitably seanchaí mode as he's filmed in what was then the Grange Inn (now the Barbers pub) on Lower Grangegorman.
Billy in the Bowl went on to inspire plays, ballads, ghost stories, street art (see top of the page), and a cover of Le Cool magazine by Fuchsia Macaree. One Billy ballad is referenced in the Pogues song "The Sickbed of Cuchulainn".
Yet even when brutal murders are involved, such folk tales can tend to become, well, a bit too cartoony. Or almost glorified or romanticised, despite the vicious violence that must have been involved. Perhaps it's bound to happen eventually, what with the passage of time.
To redress the balance, here's a two-minute short directed by Andrew Keogh of Bread&Circus about the Stoneybatter Strangler story. Be warned, though: it is violent, visceral and gory.