Spy games, espionage and secret documents: with The Plot, Irish photographer Martin Cregg presents an artistic enquiry into the undercover intelligence war between the IRA and British agents during the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921). Through a dialogue between photographs and historical documents as well as archival materials, the work traces a complex narrative of republican resistance-revealing efforts to violently eradicate members of the Crown forces in Dublin and overthrow British occupation of Ireland. Cregg's research led him to photograph sites once used for military drills and training, undercover munitions factories, and safe houses. Further, many locations photographed were sites of assassinations and failed ambush attempts. Texts and spy dispatches from the infamous Michael Collins intelligence files, as well as interviews from witness reports at the Bureau of Military History Archives in Dublin, are used to give voice to some of the main players of the time - from Ormonde Winters, head of I Division at Dublin Castle and David Nelligan, the infamous IRA spy in Dublin Castle to members of Michael Collins' group of assassins known as The Squad. The work is supplemented by an in-depth series of essays by Martin Cregg relating to the topic. Like the archival material it draws upon, the book itself must first be Åopened up.Ä Its contents become accessible- and irre-vocably ÅunsealedÄ-only once the sealed dust jacket has been cut open along the front edge of the book, following the dotted line, using a letter opener or another sharp blade.
