Patrick Comerford
This blog passed yet another record landmark with 26 million views by late evening Kuching time yesterday (1 March 2026) or in the early afternoon Irish time. The views yesterday (318,307) were the highest daily figure I have ever recorded.
Last month (February), indeed this year so far, has had a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (13 million) have been within less than nine months, and the February total of hits was the highest monthly total ever, at 3,386,504.
Yesterday’s total followed little more than a day after this blog passed a new milepost of 25.5 million (28 February). Indeed, it passed the half-million mark seven times in all last month: 25 million four days ago (26 February), 24.5 million hits earlier last week (22/23 February Sarawak or Irish time), 24 million the previous week (20 February 2026), 23.5 million (17 February 2026), 23 million (12 February 2026), and 22.5 million (4 February).
At the end of 2025, this blog had 21 million hits by New Year’s Eve (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 5 million hits or visitors for 2026, and February 2026 has been the busiest month ever, with over 3.3 million hits.
I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached seven times last month alone. Half of the 26 million hits – 13 million – have been within less than nine months, since 17 June 2025.
Throughout last year and this year, the daily figures have been overwhelming on many occasions. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog have been in February alone, one was this month (March), one was in January, and two were in January last year:
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
• 280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273,022 (27 February 2026)
• 261,422 (13 January 2026)
• 195,391 (20 February 2026)
• 190,630 (23 February 2026)
• 190,467 (21 February 2026)
• 188,376 (19 February 2026)
• 183,317 (22 February 2026)
The rise in the number of readers is overwhelming this year and last, with the daily averages currently running at over 110,000 a day, and over 200,000 a day over the past week. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.
Joseph Heller wrote in Catch-22, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.’ It may only be a hunch, but I have not failed to notice that some of the record traffic on this blog has been around the days Trump declared war on Iran, his state of the union address, attacked Venezuela, in the week before and after his inauguration and his damp-squib military parade in Washington DC. Indeed, the overwhelming number of hits are not from Ireland, the UK and Greece, as I might expect, but from the US.
It is not paranoid to imagine how the bots at work in some ugly, dim basement in Washington are trawling far and wide for anyone critical of the Trump regime. The costs may be minimal, but it’s still money that could be better spent on healthcare, education, rehiring air traffic controllers or reinstating DEI programmes. But I doubt my criticisms of Trump, Rubio, Vance, Hegseth and Musk are going to make it easy to get a visa to visit the US over the next four years, should I ever want to 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 is so. And if a minor critic of the Trump regime outside the US such as me is being intimidated at this level, try to imagine how many critics inside the US feel they really are being monitored, intimidated and bullied into silence.
To put this figure of 26 million in context:
UN reports show 26 million people in Sudan are experiencing acute hunger, with over 10 million displaced. About 26 million people are forced into poverty every year due to extreme natural disasters.
The populations of Australia and Mali are about 26 million each, and a similar number live in the Seoul metro area in South Korea.
Greece welcomed almost 26 million foreign visitors between January and August last year, marking a 4.1 per cent increase over the same period the previous year.
The wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton in 2011 had a total average audience of 26 million viewers.
Several analyses, including those based on data from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and media reports, show US taxpayers spent over $26 million on Donald Trump’s golf outings at his own courses during the first 100 days of his second term of office. Reports last year indicate a crypto business associated with the Trump family generated roughly $26 million in unrealised profit.
Financial disclosures show the Trump Organisation received more than $26 million in income from partnerships with Dar Global, a Saudi Arabian real-estate firm, for projects in Dubai and Muscat. The 2017 Trump inaugural committee paid $26 million to WIS Media Partners, a firm set up by a friend of Melania Trump.
26 million metres is 26,000 km and 26 million sq metres is 26,000 sq km: Sicily, with a land area of about 26,000 sq km, is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and Italy’s largest region; the North Island is the larger of New Zealand’s two main islands, with an area of about 26,000 sq km; Rwanda is slightly larger at 26,338 sq km.
And 26 million minutes is 49 years, 5 months, and 20 days, or more than 180,55 days, or over 433,333 hours. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take almost 49½ years to reach today’s 26 million mark.
It is almost four years since I retired from active parish ministry. These days, though, about 100 people on average are reading my daily prayer blog posted on this blog each morning. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700 or more people each week.
Today, I am very grateful to the real readers among those 26 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I remain grateful to the faithful core group of about 100 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each day.
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