Patrick Comerford
This month of February and this year so far have seen a phenomenal amount of traffic on this blog, reaching a volume of readers that I could never have expected in the past. Earlier today (28 February), this blog passed a new milepost of 25.5 million, and has passed the half-million mark seven times in all this month: 25 million two days ago (26 February) 24.5 million hits earlier this week (22/23 February Sarawak or Irish time), 24 million last 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 4.5 million hits or visitors for 2026, and February 2026 has been the busiest month ever, with over 3.1 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 six times this month alone. Half of the 25 million hit – 12.5 million – have been within the nine months since 6 June 2025.
Throughout last year and into this year, the daily figures were overwhelming on many occasions. Eight of the 12 days of busiest traffic on this blog have been in this month alone, one was last month, one was in December last and two were in January 2025:
• 289,076 (11 January 2025)
• 285,366 (12 January 2025)
•280,802 (26 February 2026)
• 273022 (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)
• 166,155 (15 December 2025)
• 156,311 (18 February 2026)
The rise in the number of readers seems to have been phenomenal throughout last year, and the daily figures are overwhelming at times, currently running at over 110,000 a day this month, and almost 170,000 a day this week. Ten years ago, the daily average was around 1,000.
To put the figure of 25.5 million in context:
A 1 MW data centre can use up to 25.5 million litres of water a year -- that’s how much water 300,000 people use in a day.
About 25.5 million people, including 2.5 million children, die in agony every year around the world, for want of morphine or other palliative care.
More than 25.5 million people live below the poverty line in Yemen, due to the impact of the war in the country.
25.5 million minutes is 48 years, 6 months, and 5 days, or more than 17,708 days, or almost 425,000 hours. In other words, if this blog was getting only one hit a minute, it would take more than 48½ years to reach today’s 25 million mark.
It is almost four years now 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 be prayerfully thankful if the congregations in their churches totalled 700 people or more each week.
Today, I am very grateful to all the 25.5 million readers of this blog to date, and in particular I remain grateful for the faithful core group among you who join me in prayer, reading and reflection each morning.
