She was nicknamed La Duquesa Roja or The Red Duchess due to her lifelong left-wing, anti-Francoist, pro-democracy political activism.

He married María Montserrat Viñamata y Martorell, the daughter of the 23rd Countess of Alba de Liste, in 1983, and has two children.

Eleven hours before her death, 7 March 2008, Luisa Isabel married her longtime partner and secretary since 1983, Liliana Maria Dahlmann in a civil ceremony on her deathbed.

[1] Today, the Dowager Duchess Liliana Maria,[2][3] her legal widow, serves as life-president of the Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia.

The principal residence of the dukes was the Palace of Medina Sidonia, located in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz.

An atypical and controversial aristocrat, she was a historian, the guardian of the ducal archives and the author of numerous works.