A ceilidh is not a particular dance, it's an event. No one ever called such events "English contry dances" - this referred to the individual dances, not the occasion. I think old usage would probably just have been " a dance"; during the mid-20th century revival, such occasions were often called "Barn Dances". More recently, a bit of a split has developed between "Folk dancing" (as practised by EFDSS) and "English ceilidh" which is looser, livelier, more energetic, and often includes more non-English dances.

No matter what your late godmother used to call her dances, WAV, there are now dances called ceilidhs in England. I was at one on Sunday. It wasn't called an "English country dance", it was called a "ceilidh". QED.

Pity about the crazy gaelic spelling, but there you go, English is full of words from other languages. We'll cope.

Marje