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.

Amateur historians are sleuthing away in an effort to reunite relatives of a World War One soldier with two medals he won during that conflict.

Tom Hanks would be proud. A charity shop is saving Private Ryan’s medals for his relatives after a chance discovery made in an old jacket handed into it.