Angela Lansbury moved her family to Ireland primarily to protect her children from the harmful influences they were exposed to in Los Angeles, particularly her daughter Deirdre's involvement with a crowd linked to the Charles Manson cult. Lansbury, worried about her children's exposure to drugs and dangerous people, decided to relocate to County Cork, Ireland, which was also the birthplace of her mother. In Ireland, she sought a safer environment away from the negative influences that had impacted her family, and she took a break from her career to focus on her family and their recovery. This move helped her children escape drug addiction and the associated dangers that they faced in Southern California in the late 1960s and early 1970s.