Search ceases for relatives of Irish WW1 hero

The search for relatives of a soldier who won two medals in the First World War has entered no man’s land. Despite exhaustive research and many false dawn leads, two groups which had been trying to trace the relatives of Private William Patrick Ryan have come up empty-handed and now fear they may never be able to hand his medals back to his descendants.

Late last year a jacket was among a bundle of clothes handed into a charity shop in Kealkil, near Bantry, Co Cork. Steve Roffe, who has worked for three years as a volunteer at the shop, found the two medals in the jacket pocket.