Derrick McReary

"I went into a situation full of optimism, full of naiveté... I got burnt. Look at me... like smack on a fucking spoon."

- Derrick McReary to Niko Bellic in Tunnel of Death.



Derrick McReary (Irish: Darragh Mac Ruairí) is a character in the Grand Theft Auto series who appears as a main character in Grand Theft Auto IV, a cameo character in The Lost and Damned, and a minor character in ''The Ballad of Gay Tony. ''Derrick was an Irish criminal, mainly involved with the McReary crime family with his brothers, Patrick and Gerald. Derrick went into hiding in Ireland, as he was caught stealing from the Mafia (probably Ancelotti crime family). He also gained great influence in Dukes and Ireland.

Biography
Derrick was born to Maureen McReary and Mr. McReary in Dukes. Born in 1956, he is the eldest of the McReary siblings, followed by Francis, Gerry, Packie and Kate respectively. He was arrested at three different protests in the early-1970s, all before he turned eighteen. In 1978, he and Bucky Sligo were both arrested for armed robbery. He was arrested in 1980 for cocaine possession and according to the LCPD, his heroin addiction was picked up in prison. In 1985, the last of his American criminal record was him getting caught carrying explosives.

According to Packie, Derrick left for Ireland in the late-1980s when he was depressed, and Francis allegedly threw him a farewell dinner in Chinatown. Derrick, Bucky and Aiden O'Malley (all people with Irish backgrounds) fought in the Provisional IRA against the UK Government during The Troubles, once fighting in heavily-armed combat in Belfast, Northern Ireland (according to Derrick during Three Leaf Clover). Their combat ended in 1995, when the trio were arrested in the United States for a string of extremely violent robberies (they robbed the Mafia, according to Francis) Derrick snitched on Aiden and Bucky. Aiden was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but Bucky was found innocent at his trial. Derrick returned to Ireland and worked for some time with the North Korean thug Park Young-Guk, buying his counterfeit banknotes in order to exchange them to the current rate. He returned to Dukes, Liberty City in 2008.

Return and The Bank Heist
Derrick returned from Ireland in 2008, and met via his little brother, Packie. Niko Bellic. During the bank heist, Derrick and Patrick argued about how to treat the hostages in the bank. Michael Keane, a member of the Irish Mob who was also partaking in the bank heist was shot dead by Eugene Reaper, who was then killed by Derrick and Packie in retaliation. Packie and Derrick, along with Niko, escaped the Bank of Liberty with $1,000,000.

Derrick wanted the money from the bank heist to be sent back to Ireland in order to help with the "cause" (which was most likely going to be given to the Continuity IRA), however Packie refused to let him do so, saying that the cause was over.

Jobs for Niko Bellic
Following the bank heist, Derrick took up residence in Alderney, where Niko helped him with some problems at Packie's request.

During their first meeting since the bank heist, Derrick tells Niko that Bucky Sligo, a former associate and friend of his, wants Derrick and his family dead. Derrick asks Niko to take a Police Car and use the police computer to find Bucky and then kill him and his gang. Niko finds Bucky, and chases him to Bucky's hideout. Niko then kills him and his gang.

Later, Derrick asks Niko to help him in protecting Kim Young-Guk, a North Korean mobster who came to trade counterfeit U.S. Dollars, from the LCPD.

In Derrick's final mission, Derrick asks Niko to kill Aiden O'Malley, who'd been trying to sell the police information about Derrick in exchange for a reduced prison sentence. Niko and Packie ambush the prison convoy transporting Aiden to the Alderney State Correctional Facility by blocking the vehicle's path, killing the police officers and then carjacking the vehicle Aiden was being transported in. They evade the police, and later change vehicle to a more inconspicuous Presidente. After freeing Aiden from incarceration, Packie tells him they'll be taking him to the cliffs in Leftwood, tricking him into believing he'd be leaving the country on a boat.

When they arrive at the cliffs, Packie reveals the truth behind why they rescued him and leaves Niko to finish off Aiden alone. In his final moments, Aiden reveals that Derrick had sold him out to avoid prison, suggesting Derrick had not been the innocent victim that he had made himself out to be, but instead was just as crooked and disloyal as Aiden and Bucky were. Ultimately though, Niko executes Aiden, whose body falls into the sea.

Blood Brothers
When Derrick's younger brother, Francis, discovers that his elder brother has returned to Liberty City, Francis worries that Derrick will reveal Francis' corruption to the press for money. He talks with Derrick in a park, in an attempt to have Niko assassinate him. Niko has a choice of who to kill. The player does not receive anything from Derrick for killing Francis. If spared, the last time you will see him is during the funeral, bringing the family and everyone else into the church while Niko and Packie shoot at the Albanian gangsters who crashed the funeral. If killed, Derrick is buried at the Dukes cemetery.

After the Events of Grand Theft Auto IV
Patrick McReary can be found in a random encounter in Grand Theft Auto V, and if he is helped in his predicament he will be available as a gunman for any heists that take place after his encounter. If recruited for The Paleto Score, Packie will talk about his involvement in the Bank of Liberty City heist and names his accomplices including Michael, Niko and Derrick. During the conversation, he reveals that Derrick is in fact dead. This could mean that Niko killing Derrick in Blood Brothers was the canon choice in the story, or if he was spared he later died from his drug habits or other causes.

The latter seems likely, as after Out of Commission if Derrick was spared Packie will say he's all his mother has left, but it is unknown why he says this when Francis is spared, most likely because he tried to avoid his family at all costs.

Personality
Derrick seems to be the most compassionate of all the McReary brothers, as is shown in the way he tries to calm down and negotiate with the bank staff and customers during the heist. However, he is shown to be rash and violent when intoxicated or high, as seen when he hires Niko to kill both Bucky and later Aiden.

Derrick initially appears to be the most honest of the McReary brothers, claiming that he always fought for what he believed was right (referring to his time in the IRA) and only did what he did to help his cause. However, it is eventually shown that Derrick is not as loyal to his cause as he made himself out to be. When faced with severe criminal charges due to his participation in robberies in the late-1990s, he betrayed his two former IRA colleagues Aiden and Bucky in order to avoid prison, resulting in a twenty-year prison sentence for Aiden.

Murders committed

 * Eugene Reaper - Murdered by him and Patrick during a bank heist in retaliation for killing Michael Keane.

Grand Theft Auto IV

 * Three Leaf Clover
 * Smackdown (Boss)
 * Babysitting (Boss)
 * Tunnel of Death (Boss)
 * Blood Brothers (Can be killed)
 * Undertaker (Alive if spared) (Corpse if killed)

The Lost and Damned

 * End Credits (Cameo)

The Ballad of Gay Tony

 * I Luv LC

Trivia

 * Derrick's portraits are hung on the wall inside the Steinway Beer Garden and Lucky Winkles.
 * Derrick's relationship with North Korean criminal Kim Young-Guk and the counterfeit dollars scheme closely resembles the alleged involvement of former IRA leader Seán Garland in the distribution and resale of North Korean produced "Superdollars".
 * Derrick's favorite radio station is The Journey.
 * If he was killed in the mission "Blood Brothers", his tombstone at Steinway will say: "Here lies Derrick McReary, Brave, Honest, Shot Dead." Francis' will say the same thing, but his grave will be on Colony Island.
 * And as a curious note, Derrick's tombstone model is not solid, so players can get past through it. By the other hand, Francis' tombstone in Colony Island is solid. Whether this was intentional or not, is unknown.
 * If Niko kills Derrick, Kate will tell Niko during the "Undertaker" mission that she didn't know Derrick that well.
 * Derrick, along with Packie, Ivan Bytchkov and Vladimir Glebov are only featured in the end credits when they appear in The Lost and Damned.
 * Despite being an American of Irish descent, he sometimes speaks as if he was a true Irishman, such as saying "me" instead of "my" (ex. "I got me demons") or freely using the adjective "bloody" (common in Irish dialect but non-existent in American dialect); this could possibly be an affect of him spending so many years in Ireland before returning to Liberty City.
 * He also appears to speak with a minor tic, causing him to stutter on some vowels (e.g. pronouncing high as "hi-i-igh", Alderney as "A-Alderney", drugs as "dru-ugs"). This is most noticeable in the mission Smackdown.