Ever since militant members of the Irish Republican Army began exporting their campaign of violence from Ulster to Britain, Scotland Yard has suspected they were smuggling in explosives and weapons aboard an unlikely gunrunner: the 1,800-passenger liner Queen Elizabeth 2. In 1972 two of the vessel's kitchen porters were charged with possession of rifles and hand grenades on board, following one of the ship's stopovers in New York. An I.R.A. bomb factory was discovered last December in Southampton, the liner's home port, which has long been a center of I.R.A. activity in Britain. Last week, following a police raid that netted...
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