Knuckle

• Genre: Documentary
• Director: Ian Palmer
• Rate: ***

It’s like a real-life Fight Club set in Ireland. Members of three rural clans settle disputes big and small by pounding the pulp out of each other in secluded back lanes or farm lots.

Sometimes it’s just for family honour, other times it’s for big money – as much as 60,000 pounds ($95,000).

The families wind each other up by sending taunting videos, which are more silly than scary.

Director Ian Palmer spent 12 years making this documentary, gradually gaining the trust of a secret society of Irish gypsies known as Travellers, a name that recognizes their roots as itinerant workers.

He watches over the years as young men become older, fight each other, patch things up and then resume scrapping again.

The mutual hatred has some root in two murders that occurred at the start of the 1990s, but it seems the urge to bash has passed down through the bloodlines for as long as anyone can remember.

Saddest thing of all is watching how young children get caught up in the feud, perpetuating a tragic cycle of violence.