I’ve yet to see the new LOTR series but the initial Irish Times review is actually quite funny and they summarized it with the following tagline:
“De Lord of de Rings: The new hobbits are filthy, hungry simpletons with stage-Irish accents. That’s $1bn well spent“
I’ve always seen ‘Hobbits’ as having more of an upper class English accent! 
‘I say, chaps. We seem to be having a spot of bother with that Sauron chap. Bit of a cad, in my opinion!’
Interestingly, when I shared the above post as a joke on a number of fantasy sites, some people started trying to explain and defend what’s really a kind of veiled hangover from colonization, with rational pulled from Tolkien’s fantasy literature canon
“Well, they are not really hobbits. They are harfoots!”
“The series is set 5000 years before Lord of the Rings, so accents, cultures and races can change a lot over this period, depending on who they breed and associate with.
Etc. etc.
Absolutely nuts!
