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 57 million shortly after midnight, in the early hours of this day (18 September), having reached 56 million by mid-afternoon three days ago (15 September).
This is the ninth time these figures have passed the million mark since the end of last month. In a steady climb, the figures reached 55 million six days ago (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 36 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone.
This means half of all hits or reader figures have been within the past six months, with 28.5 million hits since 23 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 8 million hits before dawn this morning.
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)
The daily average so far this month is 460,000-500,000 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:
An artificial intelligence (AI) model is being trained on a set of NHS data for 57 million people in England, from which personal information has been stripped away, in a world-first pilot project run by researchers at University College London and King’s College London.
A comprehensive study of electronic health records for 57 million people in England has revealed the evolving burden of cardiovascular diseases before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was led by scientists at Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh and UCL.
More than 57 million people worldwide live with dementia, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO), and almost 10 million people are newly diagnosed every year.
Around the world, 57 million children of primary school age are being left out of the world’s classrooms and at least 250 million primary-aged children are admitted only to leave within a few years, unable to read even a single sentence.
Researchers say the world creates 57 million tons of plastic pollution every year.
The Greek Ministry of Maritime Affairs has introduced a €55-57 million support package for ferry operators to stabilise ticket prices against rising fuel costs.
Global tourism rankings show Italy has 57 million arrivals a year.
57 million minutes equals 108 years, 4 months, 14 days, and 8 hours. This means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in early May 1918.
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 57 million hits, I am truly grateful today to the real readers among that 57 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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