A president in the middle of an existential conflict took time out to address Irish politicians.
TDs and Senators were joined in the Dáil chamber by Ukrainian refugees who had fled from Russia's invasion.
Before Volodymyr Zelensky asked Ireland for help, he first laid out what he termed "real facts".
Russian missiles are targeting locations where food, fuel and agricultural equipment is stored.
He told his Irish audience, well acquainted with famine, that hunger would be Russia's new weapon of war.
The Ukrainian President said bodies were lying in the streets of the besieged city of Mariupol, where not a single house was left undamaged.
The same was true in other cities whose names "you may have not heard".
He mentioned the liberated city of Bucha, where Russian war crimes are being investigated.
Over the past 42 days of "all-out war", 167 children were killed in the Russian assault.
78 ambulances were shot at; 258 hospitals targeted; 927 educational institutions damaged.
The grim toll continued.
Russian soldiers were killing or kidnapping local, political and community leaders.
They were targeting churches where they knew only women and children were hiding.
Ten million Ukrainians are without shelter.
He concluded: "Russia should be held responsible."
It was more than half-way into his speech when he tilted his narrative onto how Ireland could play a role.
After expressing gratitude for Irish humanitarian aid, and the welcoming of Ukrainian refugees, he asked for specific help.
President Zelensky requested Ireland play a leadership role in strengthening EU sanctions against Russia.
With an air of exasperation, he said: "We still have to convince foreign politicians to cut ties to Russian banks.
"We have to convince Europe that Russian oil cannot fill the military with more funding."
The TDs, Senators, diplomats and Ukrainian refugees had watched the address on two large TV screens with contemporaneous interpretation.
The Ukrainian president would not have been able to see Taoiseach Micheál Martin rise to his feet, with a badge pinned to his lapel with both Irish and Ukranian flags.
Indeed, many in the Dáil chamber were wearing the blue and yellow clothing, or ribbons and badges, in the Ukranian national colours.
The Taoiseach said that Ireland would continue to support the imposition of the strongest possible sanctions on Russia and, to applause, declared that Ukrainian refugees would be welcome here until they could return home.
"Our home is your home," he said.
When Micheál Martin resumed his seat, President Zelensky nodded in thanks and disappeared from the screens - his longer-than-expected attendance had come to an end.
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar asserted that "Putin and his apologists" had "raped and defiled the very principles of humanity".
But he was keen to differentiate Russia's leadership from its people.
To loud applause, he said: "We have no quarrel with Russians and admire those opposing the war."
Mary Lou McDonald, the Sinn Féin leader, focused on the Russian diplomatic presence in Ireland.
Challenging the coalition, she said it was "long past time" that Yuriy Filatov, the Russian Federation's Ambassador to Ireland, was expelled.
That demand was echoed by the Labour leader, Ivana Bacik, who drew applause from some on the Fianna Fáil benches even though government policy is opposed to such a move.
Inevitably, the divisions on the question of neutrality came to the fore as the statements continued.
President Zelensky had said that Ireland had "not remained neutral to the disaster" which had befallen his country.
Yet Independent TD Cathal Berry, who was formally a member of the Defence Forces elite Ranger Wing, called on the Taoiseach "to send protective defensive weapons to Ukraine".
However, four People Before Profit TDs refused to applaud President Zelensky after his speech, because - in part - he had called on NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine which could have risked triggering a world war.
The Green Party leader and Minister Eamon Ryan referred to some of the other ten Heads of State who had delivered addresses to the joint Houses of the Oireachtas.
He quoted from John F Kennedy, Nelson Mandela and Helmet Kohl.
President Zelensky's address today made history: the first by a world leader to be delivered to the Dáil chamber via video link; the first by a war time leader speaking from his country's shell-damaged capital city; and by a president who knows that Russian forces are mustering in the east of his country and intent on continuing to unleash hell.
