fisticuffs Shocking footage shows two men trading blows in Longford town bareknuckle brawl

Shocking footage has emerged showing two young men trading blows in an apparent organised bareknuckle brawl in Longford town.

The fight is believed to have been staged on the outskirts of the midlands town and is linked to a local feud.

At least half a dozen onlookers can be seen in the background watching on as the two men begin engaging in fisticuffs in an empty car park on Sunday morning.

It's understood the staged fight stemmed from an ongoing feud.

A series of posts uploaded on Facebook in the lead up to yesterday's fight included a video of one of the men openly appearing to cheer on his son ahead of the row.

 

A sister of the younger man involved in the brawl claimed her older brother had recently been the victim of an alleged attack just days earlier.

"My big brother Martin, only 18 years of age and it took eight or nine of ye with weapons. He must be some boy so when ye didn't even touch him," she said.

In the aftermath of the fight, members of one of the man's family heaped praise on their younger sibling.

"Done us all proud, a man twice your age and you wouldn't back down," said a sister.

Longford County Councillor Paraic Brady condemned the unruly scenes, saying the incident was one which underlined the rising level of violence which has gripped the midlands town in recent weeks.

"What it shows is that these people have no regard for the ordinary, genuine people of Longford," he said.

"These people have absolutely no respect for our judicial system. What's more is they are running our county town of Longford into the ground and are being let get away with it."

The fractious scenes follow a series of alleged feud related violent incidents which have emerged over the past number of weeks.

The most recent of those took place just days earlier when traffic was brought to a standstill as two senior figures embroiled in a separate but equally volatile feud hurled insults at one another outside a busy service station.

"It's got to the stage where it is week in and week out now," added Cllr Brady.

"We have had a bad incident in a retailer, we have had fighting on the streets of Longford, and it's got to the stage now where the people of Longford will have to stand up together and say, 'enough is enough'."