Title: Knuckle

Starring: James Quinn-McDonagh, Michael Quinn-McDonagh and Ian Palmer

The violent world of bare-knuckle boxing has long been a secret one, as the community who largely embarks in the sport, the nomadic Travellers, remain silent about certain aspects of their lifestyle. But two rival Irish Traveller families, the Quinn-McDonaghs and the Joyces, allow filmmaker Ian Palmer into their elusive world, to show their long-standing hatred of each other. The first-time director surprisingly shows the families’ pressure to fight for the honor of their name and the need for revenge.

‘Knuckle’ chronicles the fight between the Quinn-McDonagh and Joyce families, who are distant relatives but are separated by a feud that has lasted generations. The heads of the rivaling families, James and Paddy, train their traveling clans in the long-standing Irish tradition, bare-knuckle boxing. Palmer takes on double duty by narrating the film, which explores the Quinn-McDonagh and Joyces’ feelings of loyalty and their pressure to fight each other.

Palmer took an interesting filming approach while shooting ‘Knuckle,’ as he didn’t initially develop a clear slant and direction of what exactly he wanted to document. When he was asked by James and his brothers, Michael and Paddy, to showcase the life of the Quinn-McDonaghs, Palmer knew little of the hidden lifestyle of Travelling families. After occasionally shooting fights between the two families, between 1997 and 2009, the director captured the true bond between the close-knit Quinn-McDonaghs, and their desire to defend one another.

One of the more astonishing aspects of ‘Knuckle’ and the Travelling lifestyle is the fact that they believe in Fair Fights, despite their competitiveness and rivalries amongst each other. For each fight, both sides choose a neutral referee from a non-dueling family, in an effort to fairly choose the winner and protect the fighters. The families also aren’t allowed to attend the actual fight, in an effort to keep the fighters focused. With the Travellers’ sense of loyalty and pride, it’s surprising the families don’t want to watch the fights to support each other.

While ‘Knuckle’ is being marketed as a film showcasing the Travelling people’s fascination with the physical aspect of bare knuckle fighting, the documentary also captures the emotional essence of why they want to fight. Despite sibling rivalry and the obsession to defend the family name, the Quinn-McDonaghs showcase the importance of kinship and family ties within the Travelling community. The women in the family don’t condone the men’s obsession to continuously fight the Joyces, and do whatever they can to protect their children from becoming trapped in the repetitious cycle of resorting to violence.

Palmer also captures the family’s traditions and customs outside of fighting, including being independent to remain control of their way of life. After James retires from bare knuckle fighting, he reflects on the choices he made in his life. He begins to feel it would be better if the family depends on more traditional forms of employment. ‘Knuckle’ offers hope that the Quinn-McDonaghs can remain loyal and close by being self-employed in such areas as market trading and dealing, landscape gardening and general building work.

Bare-knocking boxing is not only a sport to rival Traveller families, but it also serves as a way competing clans settle their decades-old feuds. This is certainly the case between the Irish Traveller families, the Quinn-McDonaghs and Joyces, which Palmer intriguingly chronicled in his new biographical documentary, ‘Knuckle.’ While the two families willingly embarked on these fights to earn money and defend their names, as the director chronicled over an unprecedented 12-year-old period, they surprisingly realized over time that putting themselves in harm’s way wasn’t the best way to protect their family.

Technical: B

Written by: Karen Benardello