I’m not sure where the beautiful photo for this week’s prompt was taken, but its stark beauty really struck a chord with me. An idea of what to write came to me as soon as I saw it. Regardless of where the photo was taken, it said Ireland to me.

There have been many waves of immigration from Ireland to America, but the one we’re most familiar with was the one created by the mid-nineteenth century potato famine. Most farmers then in Ireland rented plots of land from usually absentee landlords. When the potato crop failed, they couldn’t pay rent. The landlords would then raise the rent in an attempt to ensure their income, and eventually so many people wanted a place to live, the landlord’s men would come and evict a family then move another in immediately. They couldn’t grow anything either, and they would be evicted, and the cycle went on and on.

America was the land of opportunity for those Irish immigrants, but they arrived and saw the “No Irish Need Apply” signs when they searched for work. Regardless of which migration, it was usually spurred by poverty, and too many times they migrated to another form of poverty.

That was true of my grandmother, though her migration wasn’t until the first third of the twentieth century. She was convinced, however, that the wee folk had migrated to “A-mer-i-cay” at some point because she left milk and bread out for them every night.

This week’s story is “Diaspora,” and it features two leprechauns–Seamus and Declan–I’ve written about before. Though this is a little more serious topic than the other stories, Declan still thinks only of himself, and Seamus sees the big picture.

If you don’t see the link on the title, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab at the top of the page and select “Diaspora” from the drop-down list. To read other stories (or to post one of your own) from Friday Fictioneers, click on the frog-like icon at the bottom of the story.

By the way, the word “diaspora” is of Greek origin and from the nineteenth century as well, and it meant “a dispersion.” The meaning I’m using in the story is “any group migration or flight from a country or region” or “dispersed outside its traditional homeland.”