Modern estimates put deaths from starvation during the Great Famine at over one million, and it would certainly be remarkable if none of those caught up in such desperate circumstances had resorted to cannibalism as a result – yet records of proven incidences dating to the period 1846-52 are remarkably rare. It remains a matter of controversy as to whether this is because such cases really were few and far between, or whether more numerous instances were "covered up", either by participants who feared legal redress, or by the British authorities. But it's certainly worth noting that, in the handful of cases we know about, there is no suggestion that incidences of cannibalism extended to murder; rather, flesh taken from the dead was consumed.

Evidence for cannibalism in this period was discussed by the economist Cormac Ó Gráda of University College Dublin during a conference in 2012 and in his book Eating People Is Wrong. He noted the following documented incidents, which I paraphrase:

John Connolly, a Connemara man, was brought before a court on charges of sheep-stealing. It emerged from the evidence given at his trial that four of his children had died of starvation, and that, shortly before her own death, his wife had been forced by extreme hunger to eat part of the leg of their dead son. The boy's body was exhumed and it was confirmed that part of the flesh of the leg was missing. Ó Gráda notes that "the court wept" and that Connolly was "instantly discharged" as a result. The original source for this story was the Galway Vindicator of 1 April 1848.

and

In The Times of 23 May 1849, it was reported that a man - named in later sources as Patrick Diamond – living near Clifden, in Connemara, one of the districts hardest-hit by the famine, had "extracted the heart and liver... [of] a shipwrecked human body... cast on shore" and used it these to feed his family - an incident that apparently took place in November 1848. The evidence in this case is dubious. It was reported by a local protestant clergyman, the Rev. James Anderson of Ballinrobe, who wrote direct to the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, to report it. Pressed for further details, Anderson said he had heard of the incident from a Mr Scrope, the vice-guardian of the Clifden Union, who stated it had been "proved before Mr Briscoe,... who had been designated vice guardian here, but a short time since." Russell raised the case in the House of Commons in June 1849, but sought to downplay it, claiming that "when [the man] found the body, he did not appear to know that it was a human body, and he proceeded to cut out a part of it, and was about to eat it, when some of the neighbours remarked that it was the trunk of a human being. He said he was not aware of that, and it does not appear that he ate any portion of the flesh, whatever his original intention might have been.” He added - as if to underline that the state of Ireland was not that desperate – that Diamond was not starving, but was a well-fed labourer "of singularly voracious appetite - not at all suffering from distress himself." This last detail was widely doubted when the story was picked up by the Irish press, and indeed it was later reported that Diamond was admitted to the local workhouse in an emaciated state.

It seems likely that more research would turn up additional evidence. Christine Kenealy, one of the most prolific modern authorities on the famine, notes that "there has been a reluctance, both at the popular and academic level, to engage with the more unpleasant side of the Famine – corruption, hoarding, suicide, prostitution, theft (from those equally poor) and cannibalism – incidents which took place in Ireland as they have done in all famines. The stigma attached means that they are under-recorded and so are particularly tragic when recorded in official records. Yet famine was obscene and acute hunger could lead to desperate measures."

It's worth adding, in conclusion, that there is also some evidence – which can certainly not be taken entirely at face value – of cannibalism occurring in Ireland in earlier periods.

First, Giraldus Cambrensis, in his The Conquest of ireland, reports that when Dermot, Prince of Leinster, was presented with the head of one of his enemies, he "tore the nostrils and lips with his teeth in a most savage and inhuman manner".

THen again, Book 6 of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene famously contains some verses on cannibalism, and the poet – who lived most of his life as a planter in Ireland – seems to have based these on some material he incorporated into his A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596) dating to a period of disorder in Munster during the Geraldine rebellion there of 1579-83:

"Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands for their legs could not bear them, they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves, they did eat dead carrion, happy where they could find them, yea and one another soon after, in so much as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out their graves."

Finally, as is fairly well known, Jonathan Swift's satirical A Modest Proposal (1728) recommended reducing the burgeoning population of Ireland by raising newborn children for a year and then selling them on to landlords to be used as food for the Anglo-Protestant ruling classes.