Patrick Comerford
This blog reached a new record, with a total of 60 million readers or hits by about 9 pm last night (4 October 2026). Already, September has been an exceptionally busy time on this blog, with a steady, overwhelming rise in viewing and reading figures, having passed the million mark on 10 occasions last month alone.
These viewing and readership figures continue to be overpowering as 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 39 million hits or visitors in 2026 alone, and more than 10. 4 million last month (September), the highest total in any single month since I began blogging.
Half of all hits or reader figures have been within a little more than six months or so, with 30 million hits since 29 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.
Of the 10 days of busiest traffic on this blog, seven were last month alone, two were in May and one was in April. Although traffic has slowed down in the past few weeks, the daily averages remain high, with an average of almost 350,000 hits a day last month, and about 130,000-140,000 a day so far this month. Yet, I recall how 10 years ago, back in 2016, the daily average was around 1,000, or 30,000 a month.
The dozen most popular posting on this blog over the years, in rounded figures, have been:
1, About me (1 May 2007), 95,000 hits
2, All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well (5 September 2008), 43,000 hits
3, ‘When all that’s left of me is love, give me away’ … a poem before Kaddish has gone viral (15 January 2020), 37,000 hits
4, What is a degree from Cambridge Theological Seminary worth? (29 July 2010), 35,000 hits
5, The Transfiguration: finding meaning in icons and Orthodox spirituality (7 April 2010) 33,000 hits
6, Poems for Lent (3): ‘Indifference,’ by GA Studdert Kennedy (27 February 2012), 25,000 hits
7, Poems for Lent (39): ‘All in an April Evening,’ by Katharine Tynan (3 April 2012), 23,000 hits
8, Talking about history, memories, war and vision in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield (13 February 2015), 22,000 hits
9, Poems for Easter (2): ‘Easter Wings’ by George Herbert (9 April 2012), 19,000 hits
10, A year later, I get to find and visit Castle Matrix (19 February 2018), 19,000 hits
11, A visit to ‘Howth Castle and Environs’ (19 March 2012), 18,000 hits
12, Readings in Spirituality: the novelist as a writer in spirituality and theology (26 November 2009), 17,000 hits
Some curious though random statistics help to put this new figure of 60 million into perspective:
Around 50 to 60 million people lived in the combined eastern and western Roman Empire in the 4th century AD. The population of the United Kingdom had passed 60 million by 2001, according to a report in the Guardian on 25 August 2001.
About 60 million people worldwide are living with an amputation.
Beloved, the 1987 novel by the American writer Toni Morrison set after the American Civil War, tells the story of formerly enslaved people in Cincinnati. The epigraph to Beloved, ‘60 million and more’, is drawn from a number of studies on the African slave trade, which estimate that about half of each ship’s ‘cargo’ died in transit to America.
The children’s author and comedian David Walliams has sold more 60 million copies of his works worldwide. Hachette UK Distribution ships more than 60 million books globally each year.
Donald Trump spent $60 million of taxpayer dollars on his birthday UFC fight on the White House lawn in June.
When Trump claimed last year that the US gave $60 million in aid to Gaza, Federal officials could not answer questions about which agency or group received the funding and when. The State Department had previously said the US had approved a $30 million grant for aid but that by then the funds had not been distributed. Eventually, it turned out that the US gave $3 million in Gaza food aid, contradicting Trump’s lies about $60 million.
The centre:mk in Milton Keynes had a £60 million investment programme in recent years, with a multi-year transformation involved a significant modernisation of the space, a new multi-storey car park, and a 75,000 sq ft Primark letting.
More than 60 million passengers travelled through Greece’s 39 commercial airports from January to August 2026, with a record-breaking 4.5% increase in traffic compared to the same eight-month period in 2025.
The Greek government is offering a financial support package worth nearly €60 million to help ferry operators cope with rising marine fuel costs while preventing additional fare increases for passengers. The initiative comes as the price of marine gas oil (MGO), one of the sector’s main operating expenses, continues to fluctuate. Although fuel costs have increased significantly, ferry companies had avoided introducing another round of ticket price rises.
Geologists from Trinity College Dublin have found that oxygen-producing life forms were present on Earth three billion years ago – a full 60 million years earlier than previously thought. These life forms were responsible for adding oxygen to the atmosphere, which laid the foundations for more complex life to evolve and proliferate.
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest ocean basin on Earth, covering more than 155 million sq km or 60 million sq miles or more than 30% of the Earth’s surface.
60 million minutes is equal to 114 years, 0 months, 29 days and 16 hours, which means that if this blog was receiving just one hit a minute, I would need to have started blogging back in September 1912, weeks before Thessaloniki was incorporated in the modern Greek state.
I retired from active parish ministry 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 60 million hits, I am truly grateful today to the real readers among that 60 million. In particular, I am thankful for the faithful core group of people who join me in prayer, scripture reading and reflections each day.
A walk on the beach at Damai in Sarawak … the Pacific Ocean covers more than 60 million sq miles (Patrick Comerford)
No comments:
Post a Comment