Patrick Comerford
This month continues to be an exceptionally busy time on this blog. There is a continuing, steady and overwhelming rise in figures for viewing and reading. These figures reached 56 million by mid-afternoon today (15 September), passing the million mark for the eighth time since the end of last month. The figures reached 55 million three days ago (12 September), 54 million two nights before that (10 September 2026), 53 million hits the day before that ago (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 35 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone.
This means half of all hits or reader figures have been within the past six months, with 28 million hits since 20 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. Although we are just half way through September, this is already the busiest month for traffic on this blog, with over 7 million hits by late this afternoon.
Of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog, seven of them were 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)
The daily average so far this month is 470,000-500,000 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 56 million into perspective:
England has a population of about 56.5 million people, according to census and official statistics. The 56,490,048 residents of England make up about 84 per cent of the total population of the United Kingdom.
The Open Library digital collection managed by the Internet Archive lists over 56 million books and texts, while the New York Public Library has about 56 million items in its extensive cultural collections.
A mere 1% of the world’s population is responsible for more than half the global climate emissions from aviation. This comes about through a small group of wealthy frequent flyers who travel about 56,000 km a year.
EBay and three former top executives agreed in July to pay almost $56 million ($55.7 million) to resolve a lawsuit by a Massachusetts couple who fell victim to a bizarre stalking and harassment campaign carried out by several of its employees in retaliation for their coverage of the e-commerce company in a newsletter they publish.
The settlement brings an end to a case brought by David and Ina Steiner after several former eBay employees were prosecuted for targeting them in a cyber-stalking campaign that involved sending them cockroaches, fly larvae and a bloody Halloween pig mask. As part of the settlement, eBay agreed to pay $46.15 million to the couple; fund $6 million in charitable contributions to nonprofit organisations; and issue a ‘strongly-worded’ statement about the conduct of the three former executives.
When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they caused so much death and disease that it changed the global climate, a new study finds. European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London (UCL) have found.
56 million metres in 56,000 km and 56 million sq m is 56,000 sq km. The total land area of Croatia is approximately 56,594 sq km, making it the 127th largest country in the world. The Greater Bay Area of China, comprising Hong Kong, Macao and nine cities in Guangdong Province, has a total area of around 56,000 sq km.
56 million minutes equals 106 years, 6 months and 10 days. This means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in March 1920.
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 56 million hits, I am truly grateful to the real readers among that 56 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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