Patrick Comerford
This blog reached yet another new peak early yesterday (25 July 2025), totalling up 15 million hits since I first began blogging about 15 years ago, back in 2010.
This is yet another humbling statistic and a sobering figure, and once more I am left with a feeling of gratitude to all who read and support this blog and my writing.
After I began blogging, it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. It was over a year before this figure rose to 1 million by September 2013. It climbed steadily to 2 million, June 2015; 3 million, October 2016; 4 million, November 2019; 5 million, March 2021; 6 million, July 2022; 7 million, 13 August 2023; 8 million, April 2024; and 9 million, October 2024.
But the rise in the number of readers has been phenomenal this year, reaching 9.5 million on 4 January 2025, 10 million over a week later (12 January 2025), 10.5 million two days after that (14 January 2025), 11 million a month later (12 February 2025), 11.5 million a month after that (10 March 2025), and 12 million early in May (3 May 2025).
The figures claimed steadily throughout last month and this month from 12.5 million early in June (6 June 2025), 13 million less than two weeks later (17 June 2025), 13.5 million a week after that (24 June 2025), 14 million a week later (1 July 2025), 14.5 million ten days later (11 June), and 15 million two weeks after that.
For the third time, this blog has had more than a million hits in one single month, reaching that figure on Wednesday morning (23 July). Last month (June 2025) was the second month that this blog had more than 1 million hits in one month, with 1,618,488 hits by the end of the month. These figures follow January’s record of 1 million hits by the early hours of 14 January, and a total of 1,420,383 by the end of that month (31 January 2025). July is not yet over, but the figures for this month were 1,096,946 hits by late this afternoon (26 July 2025).
In recent months, the daily figures have been overwhelming on occasions. Seven of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog were in June alone, four were in January 2025, and one was in this month (1 July 2025):
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 261,422 (13 January 2025)
• 100,291 (10 January 2025)
• 82,043 (23 June 2025)
• 81,037 (21 June 2025)
• 80,625 (22 June 2025)
• 79,981 (19 June 2025)
• 79,165 (20 June 2025)
• 69,722 (18 June 2025)
• 69,714 (30 June 2025)
• 69,657 (1 July 2025)
This blog has already had more than 5.5million hits this year, more than one-third (almost 37 per cent) of all hits ever.
I’m still acutely aware that some of these days were in the week before and after Trump’s inauguration, the others were in the days around his damp-squib military parade in Washington DC on 14 June and his hair-brained decision to attack Iran. Indeed, the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.
My criticisms of Trump, Rubio, Vance, Hegseth and Musk are not going to make it easy for me to get a visa to visit the US over the next four years, should I ever want to visit the place under the present dystopian regime. I’d prefer to boost my ego and convince myself that my popularity is growing and that I have become a ‘must-read’ writer for so many people every day. But, sadly, I don’t think that’s so.
On the other hand – and in this lies my greatest fear – if a minor critic of the Trump regime outside the US such as me is feeling watched and intimidated at this level, try to imagine how many critics of the Trump regime and ICE inside the US feel they really are being trolled, monitored, intimidated and bullied into silence.
Putting all this aside, with this latest landmark figure of 15 million hits this week, I once again find myself asking questions such as:
• What do 15 million people look like?
• Where do we find 15 million people?
• What does £15 million, €15 million or $15 million mean?
• What would it buy?
The world’s Jewish population is estimated to be around 15 million. The Jewish Agency for Israel reports that the core Jewish population, which includes those who identify as Jewish, is approximately 15.2 million.
The Greek diaspora population is estimated at 5 million, which, when added to the population of Greece (approximately 10 million), gives a total worldwide Greek population of approximately 15 million.
Cities with populations of about 15 million people include Buenos Aires in Argentina and Chongqing in China.
Barcelona is experiencing an unprecedented wave of tourist arrivals, with more than 15 million tourists in 2024.
More than 15 million people – 30% of the UK population – live with one or more long-term conditions, and more than 4 million of these people also have mental health problems.
About 15 million people died during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Estimates suggest 15 to 55 million people died in the Great Chinese Famine in China between 1959 and 1961.
In last year’s election campaign, Trump made a host of unrelated claims, including one that the number of migrants who had crossed the border during Joe Biden's presidency had reached almost 15 million people. But fact-checking by Newsweek produced no evidence to support this figure, or anything near it – so that’s 15 million lies.
A recent study has found that over 15 million people in the world born between 2008 and 2017 might develop gastric cancer at some point in life. The study for the WHO was published in the journal Nature Medicine and says that two-thirds of these cases could be concentrated in Asia, followed by Americas and Africa.
More than 15 million people in the UK are now at risk of retirement poverty, according to a recent retirement report.
There has been a rise in the number of people living in temporary accommodation in Milton Keynes, with more than 900 households are now staying in temporary premises in the city, leaving Milton Keynes City Council with a £15 million bill.
Professor Lucie Green’s book 15 Million Degrees: A Journey to the Centre of the Sun (2016) tells the story of the star of our solar system, 110 times wider than Earth and 15 million degrees at its core.
The filmmaker Peter Jackson, director of The Lord of the Rings, is spending $15 million to support a project to genetically engineer living birds to resemble an extinct creature called the moa. Jackson owns one of the largest private collections of bones of the moa, a flightless, ostrich-like extinct bird from New Zealand.
The Greek island of Pserimos in the Dodecanese measures almost 15 million sq m or 15 sq km. It lies between Kalymnos and Kos near the coast of Turkey, and I visited Pserimos, Kalymnos, Leros and Plati in 1996, during the Imia crisis, and again in 2000 when I was staying on Kos. Pserimos has a resident population of about 80 people with a daily ferry from Pothia on Kalymnos, and the island is also visited by cruise boats throughout the tourist season.
The Minoan Palace and archaeological site at Knossos outside Iraklion in Crete covers a land area of about 15 million sq m (15 sq km).
One of the most warming figures personally in the midst of all these statistics is the one that shows my morning prayer diary reaches an average of 80-85 people each day in the past month. It is over three years now since I retired from active parish ministry. But I think many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches averaged or totalled 560 to 580 people a week.
Today, I am very grateful to all 15 million readers of this blog to date, and for the small and faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.
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