Patrick Comerford
The viewing and reading figures for this blog has become overwhelming. These figures reached the 36 million mark late yesterday afternoon (2 May 2026), having reached 35 million before mid-day the day before (1 May 2026). They passed the million mark four times in April, reaching 34 million on 29 April, 33 million on 25 April, 32 million on 19 April and 31 million on 8 April.
The viewing and reading figures are, quite frankly, overwhelming over these recent weeks and months. I continue to see a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog this year, and it continues to reach a volume of readers that I could never have expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. Half the total hits (18 million) have been within the past six months, since 2 November 2025. The total hits in March 2026 were the highest monthly total ever (4,523,648), followed the figure of 4,365,464 hits for last month (April 2026).
At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 15 million hits or visitors in 2026.
I first began blogging in 2010, and it took almost two years until July 2012 to reach half a million readers. Throughout this year and last, the daily figures continue to be overwhelming on many occasions. Of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog, one was on Friday last (1 May 2026), three were last month (26, 29 and 30 April 2026), three were in March, three were in February, and two were in January 2025:
• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
• 344,003 (30 April 2024)
• 323,156 (27 March 2026)
• 322,038 (26 April 2026)
• 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)
The number of readers continues to be overpowering and the daily averages were about 145,000 or more hits a day last month. Ten years ago, in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000.
To put this figure of 36 million into perspective:
Reports indicate about 36 million people are living in modern-day slavery, including forced labour, trafficking, and forced marriage. Data suggests about 36 million people in the European Union are living with rare diseases.
Last year Donald Trump pardoned the stars of a reality TV show who were convicted in 2022 of $36 million bank and tax frauds. Todd and Julie Chrisley had an extravagant lifestyle that was chronicled in a show that ran for 10 seasons on the USA Network.
Todd and Julie Chrisley were given prison terms of 12 and seven years respectively In November 2022 for conspiring to defraud banks in Atlanta of more than $36 million and evading taxes. Trump’s act of clemency was yet another example of his unusual use of his powers of pardon.
The Bank of Ireland is investing €36 million in a three-year project to restore its College Green buildings. The project involve the repair, upgrading and restoration of College Green’s 280 windows, 45 staircases and 200 km of electrical cabling, as well as its 54 roofs and 2.5 km walkways, promising improved facilities for customers and workspaces for colleagues. The Bank of Ireland bought the former Irish parliament building in 1803 and opened it to the public as a banking hall in 1808.
Malaysia has a population of over 36 million people (36,385,115). Dhaka in Bangladesh, where more than 36 million people live, work, and compete for space, is one of the most intense and overcrowded cities on Earth.
36,000 sq km is 36 million sq metres, the approximate area of the ‘Republic of China’ or Taiwan, a territory with disputed status in Asia that Includes Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (36,188 sq km). It is also the approximate size of Guinea-Bissau in Africa, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia, and Pahang, the third largest state in Malaysia.
The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO) is in the Russian Far East, close to Heilongjiang province in China, with Birobidzhan as its capital. The JAO was designated in 1928 and officially established in 1934. At its height in the late 1940s, the region had a Jewish population of 46,000-50,000, about 25% of its population; today, only 800 or so ethnic Jews are left there.
The JAO is Russia’s only autonomous oblast, one of two officially Jewish jurisdictions in the world, the other being Israel, and one of the few places in the world where Yiddish is a recognised minority language.
36,000 km is 36 million metres. At an altitude of 36,000 km (36 million metres), hundreds of satellites orbit in a special zone called geostationary orbit, moving at exactly the same rate as Earth rotating beneath them. From the ground, they appear frozen in one spot of sky. These satellites handle everything from television broadcasts to military communications, and unlike their low orbit cousins that zip across the sky in minutes, geostationary satellites can remain within a telescope’s field of view for hours.
36 million minutes is about 68 years, 5 months and 10 days. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take almost 68½ years, from late 1957, to reach today’s latest figure of 36 million.
I retired from active parish ministry over four years ago, on 30 March 2022. These days, though, about 120-140 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning. A similar number have been reading my current series of postings on churches and local history in Staffordshire, and were reading my recent series of postings on the churches and chapels of Walsingham. I imagine many of my priest-colleagues would be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 800-1,000 or more people each week.
This afternoon, I am truly grateful to the real readers among those 36 million hits on this blog to date, and in particular I am thankful for the faithful core group of 120-140 people who join me in prayer, reading and reflections each morning.
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