Mark Patrick Hederman

Dom Mark Patrick Hederman, OSB, former Abbot of Glenstal Abbey, County Limerick, Ireland, is a Benedictine monk, teacher, lecturer and writer. Formerly headmaster of the school at Glenstal, he was later named academic dean.

He earned a doctorate degree from University College Dublin in Philosophy of Education. He has lectured in philosophy and literature outside Ireland, most notably in the United States and Nigeria. Hederman helped found the cultural journal, The Crane Bag, and together with Richard Kearney edited the two-volume collection The Crane Bag Book of Irish Studies (1982).

At age 64, he was elected as fifth Abbot of Glenstal and became the oldest to be chosen for the position since the monastery became an Abbey in the 1950s. In a piece published in early 2011, Abbot Hederman was quoted by novelist and writer Russell Shorto speaking about the sexual-abuse scandals in the Irish Catholic Church.