Hate to say it, Mick, but I think Jack Campin has the right of it. Scottish military piping is precisely that: Scottish. It has nothing to do with the English (I think that's what you meant when you said "British") imposing their culture on the poor Gaels. You might have been closer to the mark if you had said that the British Army eventually recognized that pipe music was something that might fit very well into regimentl culture.

As for the controversy, I heard a young pipe major on CBC Radio today who was not opposed by any means to teaching the Cape Breton style, but thought that the college was making a big mistake in abandoning the "pipe band" curriculum. His point was that the more structured way of teaching gave young pipers and drummers a very good grounding in technique.