Biographies of Our Forefathers

Bernard 'Benny' Tinneny

Photo: Believed to be Benny and the unidentified woman he had planned to marry. 

Mary McGarvey, Benny's cousin, remembered Benny as being very quiet.  She told a story of the time when as a young girl she was walking down the Quivvy Road on her way to school in Belturbet when she saw Benny walking ahead of her.  He was on his way to the cockfights in Belturbet, attendance at which was one of his favorite pastimes.  Both Benny and his brother Pat raised and trained fighting cocks.  Mary found a one-pound note on the road.  She told her mother, Alice Tinneny McGuinness, about finding the note.  Her mother asked her if she saw anyone else on the road ahead of her.  Mary said yes, that Benny had been walking ahead of her.  Mary returned the note to Benny who gave her a half crown coin as a reward. 

Benny was a big man, about 6 foot 1"inch tall.  He was tanned, wiry and wore a cowboy hat to protect him from the sun.  Unlike many of the other Tinnenys on Goladuff he didn't play a musical instrument.  However, he did enjoy singing.  Benny’s niece Maisie Tinneny Brady remembered him as liking children more than some of his brothers.  She remembered him coming to their house at Quivvy when she and her brother and sister were growing up. She said that he would always have sweets for the children.  The candies were unwrapped in his pocket and the kids would go into his pockets and take them out.  Maisie recalled how the candy would always have tobacco and dust clinging to it.  

Benny owned a stone house and farm at Quivvy.   It was located between Alice's land and Hugh's land and was not far from the home of Hubert and Susanna Tinneny in 2001.  In addition to the pastures where he grazed cattle and the cultivated areas on which he grew flax for linen and hay, Benny's land had many thickly wooded acres that ran down to the Quivvy Lough.   

Benny was known throughout the area for making and selling poteen, which is home made whiskey.  He made the whiskey in stills that were located throughout the wooded areas on his land.  Although there was the house on Benny's land at Quivvy, Benny did not live in it.  He lived with his brother Francis in what was their father's homeplace on Goladuff. 

Bridie and Francie Tummin of Goladuff who were the children of Benny's neighbors, the Tummins', told of the times when they were young when Benny visited their father's home every night.  As he entered the house he would always say "God bless all here."  One day he brought little Bridie a lovely yellow and white puppy.  He said he would leave it there until he had a chance to build it a wee little house to live in near his house.  Every night he came to visit them he would say that he didn't have the house built yet but I will soon and will take it away soon.  He never did get the house built and never planned to -- that was his way of giving Bridie the little puppy.  They also remembered that Benny liked to sit and talk with and tell stories to the children.  They said “He was a real gentleman."  Francie and Bridie

Tummin remembered how heart broken they were when as children Benny was sent by the doctor to the hospital in Enniskillen where he died. 

Benny died of heart problems in the Enniskillen hospital about 1950 or 1951.  His wake which was held at the home of his brother Hugh Tinneny at Quivvy, Belturbet lasted for 2 days.  He was buried in Drummully Cemetery.   

Photo: Susanna Tinneny in the ruins of Benny Tinneny’s house in Quivvy.

Photo by R. J. Tinneny 

In 1998, Benny's land at Quivvy belonged to his nephew Hubert who grazed cattle on it in the summer.  A visit to his land in 1992 revealed the remains of old stone houses on the property, some of which pre-date the time of the famine in the mid 1800s.  There were no livable houses on the property in 2001.  The partial remains of Benny's house could still be seen but many of the stones had been removed from it to be used in other construction projects.

Note: no knows descendants.