Knuckle: Bare Fist Fighting Storyville

This programme contains some violent scenes and very strong language.

Ooh, hang on. Get back at him.

It was 1997 when I met a traveller family called the Quinn McDonaghs.

Michael Quinn McDonagh was 18-years-old

when he married his cousin, Jacqueline.

I'd been asked to film their wedding by a friend.

Around the corner at the reception,

a group of men were gambling.

The man in the red shirt stood out.

Michael's older brother, James.

I knew nothing about travellers,

but I ended up following James and his family for the next 12 years.

The Quinn McDonaghs had been fighting a bitter feud

with their cousins, the Joyces, for decades.

No sugar.

Now, both families had started to make video tapes

to insult and challenge each other to bare-knuckle fist fights.

After the wedding, I got a call from James' brother, Curly Paddy.

James had a fight coming up against one of the Joyces

and they wanted me to video it for them.

That's Curly Paddy in the ring, sparring with James.

He told me James was the family's best bare-knuckle fighter

and had never been defeated.

I'd heard a rumour Curly Paddy had spent time in prison

after a pub fight with one of the Joyces in 1992.

After that, the feuding between the families had started up again.

We were taken to a quiet country lane.

No family members were allowed to be there,

in case a gang fight broke out between them.

Each side chose one referee from a neutral traveller family,

and it was their job to show fair play between the fighters.

The fight would go on until one man was knocked out

or said he'd had enough.

Keep back here, boys, keep back.

Calm down, calm down.

-Hold it, hold it, gentlemen.

-No, hold it, hold it!

-He's biting me!

Let him up, let him up.

All right, lads! Hold on!

Back out, guys.

Break out gently, break it.

Hold on, hold on...

Well, if he gets any more...

-Break up, break up.

-Break up, boys.

When a fight's rough it'll only last six or seven minutes.

-Fuck them!

-You're a bully.

Thanks, lads.

19 grand.

But really...it wasn't for the money.

Really don't.

SHOUTING AND CHEERING

Yes! Yes! Woo!

Right, get back, get back!

-ALL:

-Ssh, ssh!

SHOUTING AND CHEERING

WHISTLING

CROWD SINGS

Genuinely... He was genuinely...

THEY ALL SHOUT AND CHEER

Joyce is the name!

CHEERING AND WHISTLING

Give me a break now for a few minutes.

I followed them back to a pub in Dundalk.

I was completely swept up in it all.

I made a deal with James.

I would give them some footage if they would let me film more fights.

James said he would leave some tapes of the fight behind the bar,

sell them for £20 each and we would split the money.

I didn't know it at the time,

but they had another camera outside the pub.

James' brothers, Paddy and Michael, didn't hold back.

A video was made and sent to the Joyce family.

It lit a fuse and led to years of fighting.

Big Joe is a leader of the Joyce family.

He got the tape the Quinn McDonaghs had made and sent back his reply.

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

-He is here.

-Who's that?

Hello?

Right, now listen, listen!

Up Joyce! The Joyces are going to do today!

-The name of the Joyces!

-All Joyce!

SHOUTING

'The Quinn McDonaghs had told me about Big Joe Joyce.

'They said he was a wild man.

'He was one of the best-known bare-knuckle fighters in Ireland.

'But he hadn't had a fair fight for ten years.

'That morning, he was leading his men

'to fight against another traveller family called the Nevins.

'They met near a small town in the Midlands

'but armed police had set up roadblocks

'to try to stop the fights.'

NEWSREADER: 'This was the scene on the outskirts of Longford Town at 8 o'clock this morning.

'Acting on a tip-off,

'the Gardai engaged 200 officers, many of them armed,

'to effectively seal off an area

'where the so-called King Of The Travellers bare-knuckle fight

'was due to be staged today.'

What was to take place was

there was to be a contest between 12 males.

And the winner was to be declared the King of the Travellers.

NEWSREADER: 'As it happened, the scheduled fight never took place,

'but the Gardai say their actions were justified

'after the detection of a sawn-off shotgun on the site

'and the seizure of an array of farmyard implements.'

The Gardai say the scale of their operation

ensured there was no loss of life.

But they've appeal to certain sections of the travelling community

to turn away from violence.

So that's it.

I'd seen James destroy Big Joe's younger brother, Paddy,

in their fight.

I wanted to find the right moment

to ask Joe why there was so much hatred between the families.

Come on...

Come on, now! Come on!

He looks the real thing but he's not the real thing.

I couldn't get hold of James for a while.

Then I got a call from his family.

They said, "Have a look at the newspapers."

James had been attacked in a pub by a masked gang and shot in the leg.

I was told it was nothing to do with the Joyce feud,

but he was ordered by the gang to leave Dundalk.

We met in a car park. He looked nervous.

I wanted to know more about all this violence.

As I was saying to yous earlier, when I state "those people",

what I'm talking about is, and I'm talking about our people...

As I said, I could talk all week about that.

'Over the years, I had tried to ask him about

'what had happened in London in 1992 with the Joyces.

'But it wasn't until ten years later that he would talk to me about it.'

It's just...

Hello!

Was it four times?

It's all changing now.

MUFFLED RECORDING:

Right, this is a reply

to the video that you made the other day in London.

# As the train pulls out today

# From Derry city... #

The Joyce family from Oxford sent this tape to the Quinn McDonaghs.

The families had been close friends until 1992.

Then a row outside a pub in Peckham got out of hand

and Brian Joyce was killed.

Brian was the brother-in-law of Big Joe

and James' older brother, Curly Paddy,

was convicted of manslaughter.

He served 18 months in prison.

During the feud that followed,

another man from the Joyce family, called Timmy,

was killed in Dublin in 1996.

We will fight, because we are men.

We don't hide behind each other and we don't get the police.

So be men and fucking fight - win or lose!

You shitehawks!

You dirty bollockses.

I am beating the Quinns!

Hey, mister!

Here, mister, here man, yeah!

'Big Paul Joyce, the young man in the Oxford tape,

'got the fight he was looking for against Michael Quinn McDonagh.'

'Michael was now 19 years old, the youngest in his family.

'Up to this point, I'd seen him as the cheerleader for his big brother.

'He told me that if he was challenged

'he'd fight for the family name.

'But I thought Michael was in the shadow of his older brother

'and I saw a young man who wanted to make a name for himself.'

-Break it.

-Let's go.

-Break it.

Let them fight away, they're all right.

Break.

Break here.

Come back.

Hold on.

Pull them back lads.

-Break!

-Break when you're asked.

'Paul and Michael were first cousins.

'Their families had lived together in London for years

'before the feud started up again.

'I'd seen on the Oxford Joyce video

'that Big Paul was told to challenge Michael.

'What Michael did this day haunted him for years.'

Break, Michael.

That's it.

-Stand back.

-Stand back there.

Hold him. Don't pull him!

Come on!

-Hold it.

-Break. Break.

'I filmed seven fights that day between the families.'

'All the fighters on both sides were related to each other.

'Brothers and cousins fighting brothers and cousins.'

A good fight. A good fight.

Break! break!

'The fighting went on into the dark,

'until I could hardly see what was happening.

'By the end of the day,

'the Joyces had one four fights and the Quinn McDonaghs three.'

'The referees showed fair play to both families

'and my video tape was the evidence.

'I could see what fair fights were for now -

'you sent your men out, they fought,

'and the families could move on.

'But it didn't always work out like that.'

And Michael lost that fight.

It's as simple as that.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

# I'm a rolling stone

# All alone and lost

# For a life of sin

# I have paid the cost... #

'After he was shot, James moved his wife Teresa and their two sons

'down to this traveller's site in the west of Dublin.

'It was safer here.

'They were surrounded by their family -

'parents, brothers and cousins.'

'If you weren't a traveller, they called you a country man.

'You were always an outsider.

'I'd known them for years,

'but I always found it difficult to film with the women.'

'They knew I was interested in the feuds,

'but Teresa and the other wives were reluctant to talk about that.'

'The family always seemed to be together.

'That's James' father, Jimmy, shaving his son's head.

'He lived beside James on the site

'and Michael was in the trailer next door.

'This is the first time he'd let me film him since he lost his fight.'

'For the first time in three years, James had agreed to fight.

'He had turned down challenges from Big Joe Joyce

'and he said he'd never fight again.

'I heard there was 60,000 on the fight,

'so was it for the money?'

Top and bottom, 30 quid.

'I had a string of mobile phone numbers for James,

'but they seemed to change from week to week.'

'He was always doing deals, but they were off-limits to me.

'He told me he ran security at night clubs

'and did landscape gardening with his family.'

Uncles, aunts, cousins...

'Do you think, going out now,

'are you kind of looking for revenge for your father?'

If I do win tomorrow,

I would say that...

To win this fight tomorrow.

'This is James' mother, Teresa.'

What do you think?

HORN TOOTING AND CHEERING

'I'd just been told I couldn't film the fights.'

'One of the referees was out on bail.

'When he saw me, he thought he'd end up on TV news that night,

'so they told me I couldn't go with them.'

'I was left with James' cousins at a truck stop,

'waiting for news on a mobile phone.'

'I couldn't believe that they kept me from the fight.

'Someone else had a camera there

'and this was all the footage I could get.

'It looks like a video nasty,

'but I was just glad to get my hands on it.'

'James and Davy Nevin fought for over two hours that day

'in the farmyard.

'And when James finally got his chance he was ruthless.'

'There was no way out for Davy.

'After two and a half hours,

'he offered James his hand to say he'd had enough.'

'The Nevin and Quinn McDonagh men

'fought each other for over four and a half hours.

'By the end of it, each family had one victory,

'the other two fights were drawn.'

TV PLAYS RECORDED FIGHTING

It's proving nothing at the end of the day.

No way.

'It didn't matter what the women said,

'the fighting went on and I kept filming.

'Most of the men didn't go in for fair fighting,

'but each family had their fighters.'

'Michael was 25 now with children of his own.

'He was ready to take on his family's enemies.'

UNINTELLIGIBLE SPEECH

'The young man who challenged Michael was called David Joyce.

'I didn't realise it at the time,

'but this fight in a church car park went right to the heart of the feud.

'David was the son of Brian Joyce,

'the man who had been killed in London

'by Michael's brother, Curly Paddy,

'12 years before, in 1992.'

Get up! Get up!

-Hey, Michael, Michael.

-Sorry.

-Fight over.

-Fight is over.

Fight is over.

Bullshit! Bullshit!

'It was David's father who had been killed,

'but what surprised me

'was that all the anger in the fight had come from Michael.'

CAR HORNS AND CHEERING

He couldn't believe it.

'Michael was always going to defend his family name,

'no matter what had happened in the past.'

'After the fights, the families watched the tapes back at the site.

'It wasn't just winning that was important, but being seen to win.'

'James always told me he'd only fought when he had to

'and that he wished it would all stop.

'But the feuding had been going on for generations

'and each fight just seemed to lead to another.'

'James was true to his word, he hadn't fought again,

'but he was now refereeing for other traveller families.

'Big Joe Joyce was coming out of retirement

'to fight against one of his other enemies, Aney McGinley.'

SHOUTING AND CHEERING

'I'd now been recording these fights for nine years

'and here I was in the middle of a forest

'filming two grandfathers beating each other up.

'Bits of my footage had ended up on YouTube

'but I didn't really care about that.

'Something about this fight made me want to quit.

'I was there because I was getting a thrill out of it,

'it wasn't really about making a film any more.

'I decided to stop.

'No more fair fights.

'I kept the tape to myself and didn't show it to anyone.'

Get back, get back!

You won your fight, up there.

-Martin's lounge.

-OK.

-See you later on.

# I'm a rolling stone

# All alone and lost

# For a life of sin

# I have paid the cost

# When I pass by

# All the people say

# Just another guy

# On the lost Highway. #

'I really believed that nothing can make me go back.

'Then Michael called.

'He said he challenged Big Paul Joyce to a rematch

'and he wanted me to go to England to film it.

'He wanted revenge for the fight he'd lost nine years before.'

'I couldn't resist.

'I said I'd do it one last time.'

Today.

'James had abandoned his house and moved to the other side of town.

'He said he wanted to make a fresh start.

'Water was coming through the roof of his old place,

'but Michael was using the kitchen to train in.'

Pads, jogging.

I'm feeling confident, I swear on my mother's life,

feeling very confident altogether.

No problem.

'Nah.'

We had no arguments whatsoever.

I just spoke to the referees.

You know everything going on with your body.

Good luck, Michael.

'It was the hottest day of the summer

'and the fight was going to take place

'on a traveller site in Hemel Hempstead near London.

'This was the biggest ever bet on a traveller bare-knuckle fight.

'Each family were putting up £60,000, making a total of 120,000.'

He knows you're ready, he knows you're going to win the fight.

Good luck, God bless you.

Everybody back.

All back, there.

THEY CHEER

Fair play, fair play to both of you. Box.

One way or the other it won't last much longer.

One man got as good as the other.

I would rather be not known for the boxing.

That's it.

'The latest DVDs have just arrived in Curly Paddy's trailer.

'The Quinn McDonaghs are at peace for now,

'but Big Joe Joyce is challenging the Nevins again.

'The feuding goes on.'

I'm feeling 20 years of age.

# I'm a rolling stone

# All alone and lost

# Through a life of sin

# I've paid the cost

# When I got down

# All the people say

# There goes another guy

# On the lost highway. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd