Peter's Field: An Evening of Stories & Songs with Sean Cooney

Sean Cooney is playing The Samuel Worth Chapel at the Sheffield General Cemetery on Tuesday 20 October, with the evening built around the Peterloo Massacre of 16 August 1819. It's one of the most significant days in working-class history, and Cooney will be telling the full story through a mix of songs and spoken word.

Cooney is an award-winning folk singer and songwriter, born in Stockton-on-Tees and now based here in Sheffield. He won three BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards with his band The Young'uns — Best Group in 2015 and 2016, and Best Album in 2018 — and has played hundreds of theatres and festivals across the UK, Europe, Australia, the USA and Canada since 2007. His commissions include the BBC Radio Ballads, Rising Up! Peterloo (2019) and The Transports (2017), and his songs have been recorded by Martin Green and The Unthanks. He also wrote the stage play The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff.

Beyond the music, he's a history graduate from Durham University who has presented BBC Radio 4 documentaries and worked in more than a hundred schools. That background comes through in the way he handles the material, combining the folk tradition with a historian's eye for the details. The night is a volunteer-led fundraiser, with proceeds going to the Trust that looks after the cemetery.

The venue itself is part of the Sheffield General Cemetery, a green space that opened in 1836 and took its last burial in 1978. The Samuel Worth Chapel is tucked inside, on Cemetery Road in Sharrow Vale. Doors open at 19:00 and the performance starts at 19:30; tickets are £10 plus a booking fee.