As many as 50 people, most of them Travellers, are said to have been involved in a row which disrupted traffic for an hour on the main street of the Galway village of Clarinbridge.
The disturbances broke out at about 11 p.m. on Friday night. Some publicans in the town locked their doors as they feared for the safety of their customers if they went outside.
"Blood was splattered around the street, and a number of those had to be taken to hospital for treatment to their injuries. My customers were scared to go out while the row was raging so I had to lock the doors for the safety of everybody," said one publican.
Local gardaí called in reinforcements to help them quell the violence and to take those arrested to Mill Street Garda station in Galway for questioning.
Despite the disturbances, there was no visual evidence of the row in Clarinbridge on Saturday morning as hundreds gathered for the annual market on the village green. There was little evidence of damage to the exteriors of premises close to where the brawl took place.
However, a retired local priest, Father Hon Keogh, was critical of the way the actions of a few, who were not from the area, had caused such upset and placed the village in a negative light.
"The sad thing is that bad news seems to be more acceptable than good news. We had hundreds at our annual old-style market on Saturday, and nobody caused any problems, yet it is the bad news that gets highlighted first," he said.
But another witness said the scenes were disgraceful and that even with reinforcements the gardaí still found it difficult to get the fighting under control. "It was so bad that I feel they should have called in the Army," he said.
Mr Michael Hannon who was the compere at the market in the village, and who stars in the TV soap Ros na Rún on TG4, said most visitors to Clarinbridge were law-abiding people.
One young woman who was due to go home at midnight from her part-time work in a bar in the village said she was terrified to do so until after 1 a.m. "It was scary. I saw a woman being thrown against a car, the windscreen was smashed in another one and there was just mayhem all over the street near the hotel where the wedding reception had been taking place," she said.
It is not known what started the row, but a resident said he thought it might have happened after a number of Travellers tried to gate-crash a wedding reception.