NiallBeag wrote:
You mean Hiberno-English? The thing is we're talking about emmigrants here, and the question needs to be asked as to the influences of the family's English. The safest assumption would be mostly Hiberno-English, but the question should still be asked...
Anglo-Irish and Hiberno-English (and latterly Irish English) have quite different meanings. From the introduction to Ó Muirithe's A Dictionary of Anglo-Irish (2000), p. 11:
"Professor P L Henry of University College, Galway, spoke of the three major strands that are woven in the English of Ireland: 'Firstly, a characteristically rural variety compounded of Irish and English or Irish and Scots. This developed chiefly in the last century and a half and is properly called Anglo-Irish. The second is a more urban, regional and standard variety tending towards international or so-called Standard English. This derives ultimately from British settlers in Ireland and its germinal period was the 17th Century. It is properly called Hiberno-English. The third strand is Ulster Scots from the same period.' I readily concede that the term 'Anglo-Irish' does not please everybody..."
Anglo-Irish is used very specifically to refer to the localised English of areas, usually rural, that had been recently Irish-speaking. It exhibits a very strong and direct influence from the former Irish dialect of the area lexically, grammatically and phonologically. (cf: Anglo-Manx vs Manx English.)
It is not the same as Hiberno-English, which is a blanket term used of various Englishes spoken in Ireland (usually historically and often relating to urban varieties), or Irish English, which refers, also in a blanket way, to the evolving Englishes spoken in Ireland today.
Of course you are entirely correct that the questioner would do us a great favour if he or she could find out which language (whether English or Gaeilge) was spoken in their family.