Director Ian Palmer spent 12 years filming bare-knuckle fighters in Ireland and the UK. His highly anticipated documentary, Knuckle, is finally released this weekend.

Here he tells TheJournal.ie about the highly regimented world of bare-knuckle bouts – and why in another life, some fighters would have been businessmen.

THE FIRST TIME I went to a bare-knuckle fight was September 26, 1997. I’d never seen one, even on video. But I met the Quinn McDonagh family at a wedding, and they said they were training for a fight and asked me to go along. I soon learned that it was a bare-knuckle fight. James Quinn McDonagh and his family, they were having a feud with the Joyce family. And that’s why James was fighting. One of the Joyces had challenged him.

There are three families in the film: the Quinn McDonaghs, the Joyces and the Nevins. They’re all cousins, and they share uncles and aunts, and they get married to each other quite often. And there’s been a feud going back for generations. Fifty years and more. Like a lot of feuds, the origins would be almost lost, but as the years go by something else would spark off animosity.

The fights are carefully organised. First, there would be a spark. There could be an argument between two people, or it could be someone getting beaten up in a pub, or it could be a woman getting insulted. And when the spark happened, whoever wanted to would send a challenge – as they call it, they’d ‘send for’ someone in one of the opposing families. It could be a phone call, it could be a message passed along. Or it could be on video – a video tape sent over, insulting someone.

The challenge would be either accepted, or negotiated. Then the fight is organised for a particular date. Each family asks a neutral Traveller family to be their referee, and it’s up to the two referees to make sure that everything is fair. The referees organise a location for the fight, and if there’s money involved the referees would take control of that as well.

The two fighters would each be picked up by their respective referee that morning. Often the whole family would be gathered to send their man off and cheer them – but they’re not allowed to attend the fights. Because you can’t really control that number of people. So referees bring the fighters to a secret location. Sometimes there’s hardly anybody there; just the fighters and referees. Sometimes some neutral Traveller families are allowed to attend.

James Quinn McDonagh, left, fighting David Nevin (Gary Ashe/Allpix)

In terms of rules; ‘fair fighting’ is pretty close to what 19th-century prize fighting would have been. You can’t hit below the belt, you can’t head-butt, you can’t bite. The referees will separate them if they’re wrestling, just as they would in a ring. But they fight with no rounds and no gloves, so you keep going until one man is knocked out. Or until one holds out his hand and says ‘I’ve had enough’.

Sometimes the referees will try, if both fighters have given a good account of themselves, they’ll say ‘Will you shake hands now, and accept a draw?’ And it often happens that they would.

James Quinn McDonagh is a complex man, an intelligent man. The first time I met him, he was training in the gym up in Dundalk, where he was living. I asked him if he’d been preparing long for the fight, and he said ‘No, I’m not a lover of training, I prefer socialising.’ And that’s the man – he’s a social person and gets on with a large range of people, both settled and travellers. He was living in London before, and doing very well for himself as a foreman on building sites in the Docklands. Born into different circumstances, James could have been a very successful businessman. He has all the skills. Life would have been very different.

In a family like the Quinn McDonaghs or the Joyces, there’s a lot of people. But not everyone is a fighter. James became a fighter for the Quinn McDonaghs because he was the best – and people want to challenge the best man. And in the context of these feuds, if you’re challenged, family duty and honour takes over. It’s very difficult to say no and walk away. That’s the world it is.

The fighting life is complex, just like any life. The objective is that if two men have an argument between the families, this thing is set up – and whatever happens, they’re supposed to shake hands afterwards, and that’s the end of it. Fights are there to take tension out of a situation at a particular time. It’s not going to end a decades-old situation, but it damps it down. And I believe that in a feud which could get to mob violence, it’s a much better way. It’s better to have an organised fight, with referees, in a controlled way, up a country lane. And then that’s it – hopefully for as long as possible.

For me, I haven’t made a film about bare knuckle fighting. For me it’s a film about families and their relationships. Bare-knuckle fighting is its unique aspect, but its really a study of the characters within those families – the people and what makes them tick. It’s family business.

As told to Michael Freeman. Ian Palmer’s documentary Knuckle is out in cinemas now after a successful showing at the Sundance Film Festival.