O’Reily is an Irish American hoodlum originally sentenced to 12 years to life for killing two people while driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, then 40 to life after confessing to a murder he had his brother, Cyril, commit. Before he was arrested for his original crime he was running a street gang of Irish American hoodlums called The Bridge Street Gang , with Cyril as his lieutenant/bodyguard. When his brother is permanently brain-damaged in a fight with a rival at a funeral, Ryan, blaming himself, goes on a drug and alcohol-fueled rampage throughout the city.