The search for relatives of a soldier who won two medals in the First World War has entered no man’s land.

If a nun living in Cork doesn’t hold the key to identifying relatives of a Private Ryan who won two World War One medals, those searching for them fear they are heading into no man’s land.

Sean O’Riordan Private William Patrick Ryan was an unusually courageous man. Having fought and survived several bloody battles in the First World War, he then volunteered in its aftermath to exhume the dead for Christian burial, even though he could have been blown to pieces by unexploded shells.