Just been reading Fifteenth Night at the Ceilidh Palace and discovered to my surprise that a Céilidh in Maine is what I would call a session. I think in the UK and Ireland it would always be a session with a céilidh being strictly a dance event with live celtic music.

Here in mainland Nova Scotia playing music communally would also be a session, I know they have céilidh in Cape Breton, I wonder if they are like the Maine ceili or the UK cèilidh

Wikipedia describes Ceilidh in modern terms as a dance event but says historically it was any shared performance event.

BTW I have deliberately used all the different spellings I could find.

Simon G