Cogadh no Sith - War or Peace on bagpipes - pipe major Nick MacVicar - nickmacvicar@

Nick MacVicar ( nickmacvicar@ ) plays COGADH NO SITH, the first lines of a very ancient tune for the Highland bagpipe. Many different spellings of the name circulate: cogadh, cogad or cogga, na or no, sith, sithe, sidh, sidhe or si. The full title is “S’ coma leam fhèin cogadh no sith“ (War or peace I care not which.) First recorded use of it was by the pipers of the Jacobite army in 1745-1746. It was played to inspire the troops by Kenneth Mackay, piper to the Grenadier Company of the 79th Regiment (Cameron Highlanders) at Waterloo, when he bravely stepped outside the protection of his comrades’ traditional square formation (formed to receive the charge of the French cavalry), walking to and fro before the enemy. Similarly used in India, when a piper in McLeod’s regiment, seeing the British army giving way before superior numbers, played “War or Peace“ which inspired the Highlanders with such spirit that they rallied and cut through their enemies’ lines. Still another anecdote has pipers of the 92nd Gordon Highlanders playing the tune at St. Pierre during the Peninsular War. The first lines of the song set to it go: War or peace, peace or war, its all the same to me, In war I might be killed, in peace I might be hanged!