GROW is a Mental Health Organisation which helps people who have suffered, or are suffering, from mental health problems. Members are helped to recover from all forms of mental breakdown, or indeed, to prevent such happening. GROW, founded in Australia in 1957 by former mental sufferers, has a national network of over 130 Groups in Ireland. Its principal strength is the support members give each other from their own experience in matters to do with mental health. GROW is grant aided by all of the Health Boards and by the Department of Health and Children.

GROW is a voluntary organisation with a small number of paid employees.

GROW began in Sydney, Australia in 1957 when Fr. Con Keogh along with a number of other former mental patients discovered the benefit of mutual help organisations while attending meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. The group began to meet on their own to work more directly on their problems of rehabilitation after mental breakdown. They resolved that they would try to preserve their experience and record whatever they found successful or helpful for their recovery. Their groups were, in fact, first known as Recovery Groups.

As the years went by, the groups spread, first nationally to over 400, then internationally to New Zealand, Ireland and America.

GROW first came to Ireland in 1969 thanks to the efforts of an Irish priest, Fr. Seán O’ Hanlon, who was working as a missionary in New Guinea. RECOVERY (as GROW was then known) had been in Papua, New Guinea since 1967 and it was while attending a public meeting that Fr. Seán first came in contact with the organisation. He attended a few of the Recovery groups in Rabaul and realised that RECOVERY was a great means of helping many of the people that he worked with.

When Fr. Seán returned to Ireland in 1969, he saw the potential for GROW among his parishioners in Athea, Co. Limerick. Groups soon spread to Cork and Dublin.

Since those humble beginnings in 1969, GROW has spread throughout the country and there are now 130 GROW meetings taking place every week in every corner of Ireland. With 9 regional offices and a National office in 11 Liberty Street, Cork, GROW has expanded at an incredible pace, facilitated mainly by the devotion and commitment of its many GROW members.