A very special thank you
I want to say a very special thank you to every single one of my readers.
Running an independent news website is not always easy. There are long hours, plenty of challenges, and often very little recognition behind the scenes. Self funded with no advertising.
That is why seeing the latest figures for OnlineNews.ie is such a rewarding moment for me as its owner.
What began the year with just 74 unique visitors in January grew steadily over the following months, reaching a remarkable 2,902 unique visitors in July.
By the end of September, OnlineNews.ie had recorded more than 11,700 unique visitors, 13,900 visits and 672,000 page views during 2026 so far. Even more remarkably, the site has passed one million server hits, with AWStats recording more than 1,018,000 hits.
It is important to distinguish between the two figures: a page view represents a webpage being requested, while a hit represents an individual request made to the server. One page view can generate multiple hits because a webpage may contain images, scripts, stylesheets and other files.
But for me, these figures are about much more than statistics.
They represent people:
people who took the time to visit OnlineNews.ie, read a story, follow the news, asked me to cover some topic or simply return to see what was happening.
As an independent publisher, watching my audience grow has been a tremendous encouragement. It makes all the work, time and effort worthwhile and gives me even greater motivation to continue building OnlineNews.ie.
Whether you have visited OnlineNews.ie once or have been coming back regularly, thank you. Every click, every page read, every share and every word of encouragement means more than you might realise. Without readers, there is no news website, behind every number is a real person who chose to visit OnlineNews.ie.
672,000 page views. More than one million server hits. Thousands of visitors.
Thank you for being part of the OnlineNews.ie journey.
I genuinely appreciate every one of you.
There were times when I questioned whether some of the content I published on OnlineNews.ie was too controversial, too challenging, or too opinionated. But I published it anyway because I believed people had a right to read the facts, question the narrative, and make up their own minds.
Looking at Ireland’s media landscape today, I believe that decision was more important than ever.
Ireland needs genuinely independent media. When so much of the mainstream media is controlled by large organisations with significant commercial interests including ownership outside Ireland, it is fair for people to ask whether they are getting the full picture of what is happening in their own country.
Public funding
The issue of public funding also deserves far greater scrutiny. When substantial amounts of taxpayers’ money go towards supporting media organisations, it is understandable that people begin to question how independent that journalism really is, what editorial decisions are being influenced.
In my opinion: Independent journalism is not about telling people what to think. Quite the opposite. It is about giving people the information they need to think for themselves.
That is why OnlineNews.ie matters.
I may not always get everything right. I may publish material that some people find uncomfortable, controversial or challenging. But I would rather see difficult questions asked and uncomfortable subjects brought into the open than have important issues ignored simply because they do not fit neatly within the accepted narrative.
Ireland does not need more voices repeating the same message like parrots.
It needs independent voices willing to ask the questions others won’t, challenge the powerful when necessary, and give ordinary people access to information without treating them as though they cannot think for themselves.
The journey continues and I hope you will continue to be part of it.
