12 Private Ryans found in medal search

Painstaking research being carried out to track down the descendants of a soldier awarded two First World War medals has uncovered 12 Patrick Ryans who served in the 1st Battalion of the Munster Fusiliers.

Genealogist Margaret Murphy has been trawling through records trying to identify the former owner, Private Patrick Ryan, who enlisted in the 1st Battalion of the Munster Fusiliers at the outbreak of the war in 1914 and whose medals ended up in the pocket of tweed jacket handed in to a charity shop in West Cork.