Sean Cooney

Peter's Field is an epic musical chronicle, commemorating one of the most defining moments in British working class history, the Peterloo Massacre. On 16th August 1819, 60,000 people walked peacefully many miles from across Lancashire to attend a mass meeting in the centre of Manchester to advocate for parliamentary reform at a time when only a tiny proportion of people had the vote. They were to be addressed by the famous radical speaker Henry ‘Orator’ Hunt. Local magistrates sent in the yeomanry cavalry and 15th Hussars to disperse the unarmed crowd and aid the arrest of the speakers. At least 18 people were killed and hundreds injured in the murderous scenes that followed. Women were deliberately targeted by the yeomanry and many of the victims recognised their assailants. The magistrates and military were completely exonerated and only recently have the victims of Peterloo been properly commemorated. Peter's Field is born from years of research and comprises 19 original songs written and performed by Sean Cooney alongside Rowan Rheingans Sam Carter amidst a spoken narrative that is derived from hundreds of eyewitness accounts. Peter’s Field was premiered at FolkEast Festival in Suffolk on the 205th anniversary of Peterloo, on 16th August 2024. The forthcoming album also features Eliza Carthy and Jennifer Reid ‘Peter’s Field is an astonishing work…a compelling, passionate performance, radio-ballad-like, evocative and haunting’ Songlines magazine ‘Peter’s Field is the most powerful creative evocation yet of Peterloo’ Professor Robert Poole, author of Peterloo: the English Uprising