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SIX DAYS OF funeral observances for Jimmy Carter are due to begin in Georgia, where the former US president died on December 29 at the age of 100.
The first events reflect Carter’s climb up the political ladder, from the tiny town of Plains, Georgia, to decades on the global stage as a humanitarian and advocate for democracy.
The proceedings are scheduled to begin at 10:15am local time (3:15pm Irish time) with the Carter family arriving at Phoebe Sumter Medical Centre in Americus.
Former Secret Service agents who protected Carter will serve as pallbearers, walking alongside the hearse as it exits the campus on its way to Plains.
James Earl Carter Jr lived more than 80 of his 100 years in and around the town, which still has fewer than 700 people, not much more than when he was born on October 1 1924.
Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton also grew up in rural settings, but Carter stands out for returning and remaining in his birthplace for his long post-presidency.
The motorcade will move through the centre of Plains, which spans just a few blocks, passing near the girlhood home of first lady Rosalynn Smith Carter, who died in November 2023 at the age of 96, and near where the couple operated the family peanut warehouses.
The route also includes the old train depot that served as Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign headquarters and the petrol station once run by his younger brother Billy.
The motorcade will then pass by the Methodist church where the Carters married in 1946, and the home where they lived and died. The former president will be buried there alongside Rosalynn.
The Carters built the one-storey house, now surrounded by Secret Service fencing, before his first state Senate campaign in 1962 and lived out their lives there with the exception of four years in the Governor’s Mansion and four more in the White House.
After a stop at the Carter family farm and his boyhood home in Archery, outside Plains, the motorcade will head north to Atlanta and will stop at 3pm outside at the Georgia Capitol, where he served as a state senator from 1963 to 1967 and governor from 1971 to 1975.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens will lead a moment of silence. While former governors are honoured with state-run funerals, presidents – even if they served as governors – are memorialised with national rites run by the US federal government.
The motorcade will later arrive at the Carter Presidential Centre, with a private service taking place at 4pm local time. The campus includes Carter’s presidential library and the Carter Centre, established by the former president and first lady in 1982.
From 7pm on Saturday through until 6am on Monday, Carter’s body will lie in repose for the public to pay their respects around the clock.
The ceremony is expected to include some of The Carter Centre’s global staff of 3,000, whose work concentrating on international diplomacy and mediation, election monitoring and fighting disease in the developing world continues to set a standard for what former presidents can accomplish.
Carter, who delivered its annual reports until 2019, won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize in part for this post-presidential work. His grandson Jason Carter now chairs the board.
The former president’s remains will travel next to Washington, where he will lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda until his funeral at 10am on Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral.
President Joe Biden, a Carter ally, will deliver a eulogy.
The Carter family will then return to bury its patriarch in Plains after a private hometown funeral at 3:45pm at Maranatha Baptist Church, where Mr Carter, a devout evangelical, taught Sunday School for decades.
Carter will be buried afterward in a private graveside service, in a plot visible from the front porch of his home.
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That roughly a third of renters would support this government is certainly surprising.
@P. J.: I wonder if some voting boxes went astray in transport? Really surprised at some of the outcomes so far… anyway, that’s my conspiracy bit for the week.
@Lydia Mcloughlin:
Haha hahaha hahahaha haha hahaha hahahaha haha hahaha
@Lydia Mcloughlin: doubtfull as every box that leaves and goes to counting centres has a garda escort
@Lydia Mcloughlin: lol
It seems, Sinn Fein are afraid that voters might bring up their unsavoury past at the doorstep. Such as support for Garda killers, robberies of banks and post offices, to fund their murders. Their protection racketeering, and drug dealing . I can see why they agents didn’t meet with the voters .
@Patrick MC Dermott: they didn’t have a bother at the last general election. They lost support because of their flip flopping. Soft approach to immigration anc suing journalists,
@brian madden: then why did ZERO seats go to immigration parties if immigration was an issue?
@9QRixo8H: Because you could see immigration as being an issue without supporting “solutions” offered by far right candidates
@9QRixo8H: Zero? They got two seats
@Paul Ferguson: Two out of ~950.
@Brendan O’Brien: They didn’t win many seats however they did secure a large portion of the vote. In previous elections they would have been the first eliminated but hung on in some areas until near the end. Their problem is that they have only one policy and aren’t well known in the local areas. There was one elected in my county but they are well known in the community doing a lot of volunteer work etc and that’s what gets you seats in local elections.
Sinn Fein lost the plot by allowing our culture to be eroded not taking a stronger stance on our neutrality & supporting the government in the recent referendum
It was the govts referendum and they won overall lol. The yes parties romped home while the no parties are licking wounds
@Criostoir Mac Raghnaill: How has ‘our’ culture been eroded, and what could SF have done to stop this?
Immigration is the issue that SF lost on . Speculating will not change it .
Australia has very stringent immigration laws and nobody refers to them as right wing and racists
@BL Music: Most racist place I ever lived in.
@BL Music: Anti-immigrant parties got a combined result of 0.9%.
@BL Music: The country was built on racism. Racism is still systemic and built into their politics and society. The reason we don’t hear of it here is more to do with our media, who owns them and the fact the most Australians are white.
@Uí Braonáin: what? Do you really believe our media would not take any opportunity to call white people racist.
The SF meltdown is beautiful
2019 election, SF 81 Seats, FG 255, FF 279. This time around SF will probably gain more seats than FF or FG. The GE in 2020 saw SF massively increase their share of the vote. Why, because people don’t bother voting in local elections because they don’t see the point. Did I vote, yes, did I vote SF, no. I don’t get why the FF and FG are so happy that over HALF the electorate are so demotivated by what they see that they don’t vote.
@Eddie Garvey: Probably because we’ve had covid, cost of living crisis, housing supply issues, energy crisis, war in ukraine, refugees, etc, since the last election. I think many understand that the country had to take repeated bites out of the biggest shit burger in living memory. No government, of any political formulation, would have done anything differently or had any effect on such huge external factors. It’s incredibly easy to crow from the opposition benches criticising, demanding, and pretending none of the above would affect everything here.
People see cynical opportunism, weather vane politics, and bluster for what it is. The centre ground is mostly holding. I’m grateful for that, at least.
Was chatting to a friend last week who was telling me how bad the government was. Asked him yesterday what he thought of the length of the European ballot paper to which he said he didn’t vote.
Absoulte joke how many of the government haters actually stayed at home and let others decide for them.
As for SF they don’t look to be much of an alternative to the current regime they blow with the wind last years racists are people with genuine concerns this year. I think a lot of their voter base is turning of them.
Why are people surprised with the vote for FG and FF? Not everybody is in the same position as those who can’t believe how votes have been cast. The majority of people in the country have made a decent life for themselves and are doing alright. Their votes reflect this. Some have not fared so well and their votes are reflected otherwise. We are not all in the same boat. Some have learned to paddle a bit better than others.
@Sun Rise:
Let’s see how hard children and grandchildren in future have to paddle because they give more of their wages to stuff the pockets of those who happen to have been born when life in Ireland was fair for those who worked.
The pretence of having assets inflated by speculative markets may give some a sense of comfort and achievement, but it comes at a price and is untenable for future generations.
So “mass migration” FFG romped home. While the anti-immigrant parties gained zero seats so far.
@9QRixo8H: if SF worked as hard as you are deflecting they wouldn’t be in this mess lol
@9QRixo8H: F mad!
SF for years courted the social welfare vote. Social welfare recipients are the main drivers behind the anti- immigration voice. This is where they lost support. I am not SF supporter, but I admire the fact that they didn’t go chasing that vote. Well done SF for not jumping on the bandwagon.
@ian: a very nice way of saying social welfare recipients are racists
GOOD BY MARY LU
I was wondering why The Wolfe Tones wasn’t blaring from Shinner radios lol
In my opinion the sf leadership adopting the blind pig headed entitled hubris of ffg alienated alot of people who would normally vote for them
There is a great danger in Ireland that politicians may misread the results as a sanction to continue with convictions that many in Europe have found awful. The misadventure of experimental theorists, where millions died while they were pursuing experiments to make a virus more infectious in humans, is a sign that society may be ready to alter its views on how politicians behave and how they are used.
The idea that May temperatures were the highest recorded in Ireland may be a low point for the politicians and media because the direction of travel is still towards a belief that controlling human behaviour is also controlling the weather/temperatures arising from academic politics.
I hope some commenters here are more considerate of what is being said.
Ask matt the thrasher why sf lost voters he knows everything
@Gerald Kelleher: In the future Ireland will have those who succeed in making a comfortable life for themselves and those who fail to do so. This is not a new phenomenon. It is the same all over the world and not unique to Ireland.
Well done there ian nice little attack on Irish people..Love the way Irish turn on Irish people. Imagine the looney right got in there.lol
Two girls with very little to no respect for their country whatsoever there.. look at the yolk on the right he lost three general elections
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