Within the insular Traveller community in Ireland and parts of the United Kingdom, among clans that are closely related by marriage and birth, conflicts are solved through ritualized bare-knuckle fights buoyed by blood pride and machismo. Think Brad Pitt in Snatch and you get the lighter side of the boxing tradition, but in real life, as documentarian Ian Palmer discovered as he filmed one clan’s champions over the course of 12 years, there’s a dark and tragic nature to the custom that drives the culture.
Knuckle combines Palmer’s personal musings as an outside observer with interviews and fight footage of the bare-knuckle bouts, carefully planned and refereed between families to solve disputes - or, as it sometimes appears, to confront perceived slights. His lens focuses on James Quinn McDonagh, a clan champion who reluctantly steps up to fight for his family name despite growing philosophical objections to the practice. Speaking with Movieline at Fantastic Fest, where Knuckle screened, Quinn McDonagh lamented what could have been if the tradition had stopped years ago. “It could have avoided a lot of tragedies, a lot of trouble, a lot of prison times,” he said. “A lot of things could have been avoided if we sat around a table and talked. Hopefully in the future that will happen.”
Read on for more with director Ian Palmer and bare-knuckle champion James Quinn McDonagh.
Knuckle is about so much more than just bare-knuckle boxing, it’s about this entire tradition that occurs in this specific place…
Adriana Lima Adrianne Curry Adrianne Palicki Aisha Tyler Aki Ross Alecia Elliott Alessandra Ambrosio
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