Patrick Comerford
The viewing and reading figures for this blog continues to surprise me, and those figures passed the 27.5 million mark late yesterday evening (16 March 2026). This is the fourth time this month alone that the half-million figure in readership numbers has been passed, with 27 million last Thursday (12 March 2026), 26.5 million hits the week before (3 March 2026) and 26 million at the beginning of the month (Sunday 1 March 2026), when the hits that day were also the highest daily figure I have ever recorded (318,307).
This year so far has seen 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 (have been within the past eight or nine months, and the total of hits last month (February 2026) was the highest monthly total ever (3,386,504), with this blog passing the half-million mark seven times in all in February.
At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 6.5 million hits or visitors for 2026.
I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers – a number reached four times this month alone. Half of the 27.5 million hits have been within eight or nine months.
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, two were this month (March) and two were in January last year:
• 318,307 (1 March 2026)
• 314,018 (28 February 2026)
• 301,449 (2 March 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)
The number of readers has been overpowering this year and last, with the daily averages currently running at over 100,000 hits a day so far this month. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.
To put this figure of 27.5 million in context:
The Earth experiences a major geological ‘pulse’ or cycle of activity roughly every 27.5 million years. This cycle influences plate tectonics, volcanism, and mass extinctions.
Norwich Castle has been redesigned as ‘The People’s Palace,’ making it the UK’s most accessible Norman castle. After a five-year, £27.5 million transformation, Norwich Castle Keep – one of Europe’s most important Norman palaces – reopened to the public last August.
The most common response to the religion question in the latest census in England and Wales was ‘Christian’– 46.2% of the overall population, or 27.5 million people.
The combined population of the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland, along with Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Åland) is estimated at 27.5 million. The Nordic Council of Ministers has a vision to make the Nordic Region the world’s most sustainable and integrated region by 2030.
The population of the United Kingdom passed 27.5 million in 1843.
The Electoral Reform Society reports that 27.5 million people did not vote in the 2024 election in the UK, roughly equal to the number who did vote.
27.5 million metres is 27,500 km and 27 million square metres is 27,500 sq km, the approximate size of Haiti, the most populous country in the Caribbean.
And 27.5 million minutes is equal to 52 years, 3 months, and 12 days, or 458,333 hours. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take more than 52 years to reach this latest 27.5 million mark.
It is four years since I retired from active parish ministry in March 2022. These days, though, about 100 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary 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 27.5 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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