Patrick Comerford
This month continues to be an exceptionally busy time on this blog, with a continuing, steady and overwhelming rise in figures for viewing and reading. These figures reached 58 million shortly before 4 pm this afternoon (23 September), having reached 57 million five days ago (18 September), and 56 million three days earlier (15 September).
This is the tenth time these figures have passed the million mark since the end of last month. In a steady climb, the figures reached 55 million on 12 September, 54 million two nights before that (10 September 2026), 53 million hits the day before that (9 September 2026), 52 million hits two days previously (7 September), 51 million on 5 September, 50 million on 4 September and 49 million on 31 August.
These viewing and readership figures are still overpowering, and this blog continues to reach volumes of readers I never expected when I first started blogging 16 years ago. At the end of last year, this blog had 21 million hits (31 December 2025). So far this year, there have been more than 37 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone.
This means half of all hits or reader figures have been within the past six months, with 29 million hits since 25 March 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, the daily figures have often been overwhelming. September is already the busiest month for traffic on this blog, with 9 million hits so far.
Of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog, seven of them have been in this month alone (1, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 September), two were in May (1 and 14 May) and one was in April (29 April):
• 1,124,925 (1 May 2026)
• 671,341 (10 September 2026)
• 647,187 (5 September 2026)
• 618,234 (8 September 2026)
• 583,320 (11 September 2026)
• 563,301 (9 September 2026)
• 557,448 (12 September 2026)
• 525,719 (14 May 2026)
• 513,725 (7 September 2026)
• 509,644 (29 April 2026)
Although traffic has slowed down in the past week or so, the daily average so far this month is still running at almost 400,000 hits a day. Yet, I recall how 10 years ago, back in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000, or 30,000 a month.
Some curious though random statistics help to put this new figure of 58 million into perspective:
The average distance from the Sun to the planet Mercury is roughly 58 million km.
The number of Americans aged 65 and older is projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050, a 42% increase.
Walford, an Edwardian mansion on Shrewsbury Road in Ballsbridge, Dublin, sold for a record-breaking €58 million in 2005 at the height of the Celtic Tiger economic boom, making it Ireland’s most expensive house ever sold.
Spain, the world’s second-most visited country after France, had a record-breaking 58.1 million international tourists between January and July 2026, marking a 4.6% increase compared to the same period in 2025.
Germany is home to about 58 million Christians, the second-highest number of Christians in Europe, after Russia, and the tenth globally.
58 million metres is 58,000 km and 58 million sq metres is 58,000 sq km.
The Irish Sea is one of the smaller regional seas, with a surface area of about 58,000 sq km or 58 million sq metres. 58,000 sq km is the surface area of Lake Michigan, a lake between Canada and the US, and the fifth largest lake in the world measured by surface area, following the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior, Lake Victoria and Lake Huron.
Karl Bushby, an English walking adventurer and author from Hull, is currently attempting to be the first person known to completely walk an unbroken path around the world. His trek, known as the Goliath Expedition, started it in the southern tip of Chile in 1998 and he is expected to return to England this month or next (September or October 2026). He originally expected to finish the 58,000 km trek in 12 years, but with numerous unplanned and unexpected delays, his expedition is now expected to last approximately 27 years.
58 million minutes equals 110 years, 3 months, and 9 days. This means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in early June 1916, after the Easter Rising in Dublin, in the middle of World War I, at a time when my grandfather was being sent home from the war in Thessaloniki.
I retired from active parish ministry about 4½ years ago, on 31 March 2022. These days, though, about 150 people on average are reading my daily prayer diary posted on this blog each morning, or more than 1,000 people each week. As this blog moves beyond 58 million hits, I am truly grateful today to the real readers among that 58 million. In particular, I am thankful for the faithful core group of people who join me in prayer, scripture reading and reflections each day.
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