For Lansbury, however, the significance was intensely personal.
Her daughter had already been around people associated with Manson before the murders. The fact that Deirdre had been exposed to that environment made the news particularly frightening for the family.
Lansbury later reflected that she and her husband could have lost one or both of their children if they had not removed them from that environment. Her comments were retrospective, but they reveal how seriously she viewed the danger decades after the events.
The family was also dealing with another devastating event at roughly the same time.
In 1970, the Lansburys' Malibu home was destroyed by a brush fire.
The combination of the fire, the children's drug problems and the increasingly troubling environment in Southern California helped convince Lansbury that remaining in California was no longer the right choice for her family. The Los Angeles Times later reported that the destruction of the Malibu home was an important part of the circumstances surrounding her decision to leave California.
It was, in many ways, a moment when several crises converged.
“We Have to Leave”
Lansbury eventually reached a simple conclusion with her husband: they needed to leave.
Rather than sending one child away or attempting to solve the problem while remaining in the same environment, they chose to move the entire family.
Their destination was Ireland.
The decision had a deeply personal element. Lansbury's mother, actress Moyna Macgill, had been born in Belfast, and Lansbury had maintained a strong emotional connection to Ireland throughout her life.
But the country also represented something else: distance.
Lansbury wanted her children away from the people, habits and influences that had surrounded them in California.
She and Shaw purchased Knockmourne Glebe, an old farmhouse on roughly 20 acres near the village of Conna in County Cork. The property became the family's new home and, in Lansbury's telling, a place where they could start again.
The contrast could hardly have been greater.
Instead of Malibu and Hollywood, there was rural Cork.
Instead of movie sets, social events and the constant activity of Los Angeles, there were gardens, cooking and everyday domestic life.
Instead of trying to maintain the appearance of a successful Hollywood family, Lansbury could concentrate on being a mother.
Angela Lansbury Put Her Career Aside
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the decision was what Lansbury did professionally.
She had spent years building her acting career. Yet when her children needed her, she deliberately stepped back.
Lansbury later said she refused work for approximately a year after moving to Ireland. Rather than continuing to chase acting opportunities, she focused on her family and domestic life.
She cooked. She gardened. She learned more about food and household life. She described buying cookbooks by Elizabeth David and learning to cook properly.
This may sound ordinary, especially compared with the glamorous life associated with a Hollywood actress.
But for Lansbury, the ordinary was precisely the point.
She was trying to create a stable environment.
In later interviews, she described the Irish period as one of the most meaningful times of her life. She did not portray the decision as a glamorous escape. Instead, she emphasized the simplicity of the lifestyle and the opportunity to rebuild family relationships.
The Irish countryside gave the family physical distance from California, but it also provided psychological distance.
There were fewer distractions.
There was no Hollywood social scene surrounding the children.
And Lansbury herself was no longer required to divide every day between professional commitments and family concerns.
The Meaning of “Starting Again”
Lansbury later described the move as beginning life anew.
That phrase captures what the family was attempting to accomplish.
They were not simply relocating.
They were trying to change the circumstances surrounding their children.
Modern discussions of addiction often emphasize that changing one's environment alone does not necessarily resolve substance-use problems. Recovery can require professional treatment, medical care, therapy, family support and long-term planning.