Ms Smith (43), who was originally from Clondalkin, was found unresponsive on Pearse Street at 12.30pm last Friday.
She had been battling addiction and living on the streets for 17 years.
The Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Rowlagh in Clondalkin, and the streets around it, were festooned with purple balloons, Natasha’s favourite colour, for her funeral today, and family mourners wore purple ribbons in her memory.
Paying tribute to her, Natasha’s childhood friend Ashling McEvoy said she wanted to speak about the fond memories her and her friend Leanne had of ‘Tasha’ “before the demands of addiction robbed her”.
She spoke of how she was a witty girl with a laugh that everyone remembered.
“Tasha had such a hardy laugh that you would hear her before you would see her. It was so hardy I refused to play Hide and Seek, or Kick the Can, because when we shushed her she would laugh so loud and get us all caught,” Ashling remembered.
She also told of how they loved swinging around the lighting poles on ropes, and how Natasha “would be up the poles like a little monkey in seconds”.
“When I think back she was so good at everything, skipping, running, swinging, even walking on the skinny railings and gates,” she added.
Ashling painted a picture of simpler days: “on skates on the black hill, the summers in Ballyer baths, making go-karts out of scrap”.
“So Tasha, I’m so sorry the second half of your young life you got a raw deal. You deserved better,” she said.
Natasha’s niece Megan spoke on behalf of the family, including Natasha’s mother Judy and her two sons Stephen and Lee. She told how Natasha always followed her sister Lisa everywhere, and how they would sneak out of the house through the sitting room window at night.
“I bumped into Tasha a few weeks ago when I was in town. She waffled the ear off me for ages then when we finished I walked away and was half way down O’Connell Street when she screamed after me ‘Megan, I love you’, and I just shouted back and said ‘I love you too’. That’s how Tasha was.”
Symbols of her life brought to the altar were a packet of Star Bars, a bottle of Coke, and a bottle of Rockshore beer.
Members of the emergency services, the staff of St James’s Hospital, and the groups that had helped Natasha during her life, were also prayed for during her funeral mass.
The song Someone Like You by Adele was played during communion, and as her coffin was being brought from the church Across the Lines by Tracy Chapman was played.
Father Hugh Kavanagh urged Natasha’s family and friends to remember the good and happy times they had together with her.
“Not being able to be with her to say goodbye would have made it harder. It’s better not to look back on things like that. Look back on all the good memories, those wonderful moments of joy and happiness with great fondness and great love,” he said.
Natasha is survived by her mother Judy, sons Stephen and Lee, brother Edward, sisters Lisa, Kelly, Jacko and Joanne. She is predeceased by her father Tommy and brother Tomo.
Her two sons were raised by grandparents, and they used to look after her on the streets along with homeless organisations A Lending Hand and the Liberty Soup Run.
Ms Smith’s family told this week how she became unable for a settled life sometime after the birth of her second son.
They had tried hard to get her off the streets and into treatment for drug addiction, but she refused assistance.
The family said no one deserves to die on the streets. While they did not want to lay blame, they feel there should be an organisaiton able to take over when a person can’t help, or won’t help themselves.
In a message on its social media page, A Lending Hand said Natasha chose a tent for safety and slept outside a garda station to feel safer.
It said that emergency accommodation is often not safe in the city, and can be non-existent when you need an emergency bed.
“Natasha died trying to keep herself safe when the state should be providing emergency accommodation that is fit and safe for humans and not forcing women to take their chances in freezing conditions in a tent,” it said.
Following Requiem Mass, Ms Smith’s remains were brought to Newlands Cross Crematorium for cremation.