Having done quite a bit of research of Irish records, I wouldn't be that suspicious. Many Irish records were destroyed during periods of civil unrest which continued well into the 20th Century, or through unintentional mishaps, and fire was the most frequent source of the destruction. As far as the accuracy of the records go, I'd say it depends.
Yes, the British placed great emphasis on record-keeping, but when it came to registration of births, marriages and deaths, it depended on native self-reporting, supported by the negative incentive of fines for non-reporting. Again, in periods of unrest, or in the event of a personal family tragedy, events went unreported. Add to that the fact the local registrars were British, so the spelling of family and place names were often mangled in the records. As a final difficulty, in predominantly rural societies such as Ireland (and Kenya) in the the 19th and early 20th centuries, age was of little consequence. (You were young, middle-aged or old, and that was about it.) As a result, you find the birth, marriage and death records (if you're lucky enough to find all three for the same person) vary in age by an average of 5 years, sometimes more.
It wasn't until government entitlements such as old-age pensions were introduced that accuracy in age became imperative. To a lesser extent, the same applies to the US. Most states or large cities didn't have a centralized vital records system until the advent of Social Security registration in the late '30's. In fact, one of the major WPA projects involved manually creating a name index for earlier US census records, since these were frequently used as proof of age and/or citizenship in the absence of birth certificates.
I don't know what kind of registration system the Brits or the Kenyan government set up in Kenya, but I suspect, from the scenes described by that article about the National Archives, that the surviving records aren't all that complete, so you find a lot of research into ancillary materials such as old publications, lists, wills, land records, etc.
Have we ever seen an original birth certificate for either Barack Sr. or Ann Dunham?
Have we ever seen an original passport for either Barack Sr. or Ann Dunham?
Have we ever seen an original marriage certificate for Barack Sr. and Ann Dunham?
If there is only one thing that you should have learned by now and that Obama has the most elusive, secretive, and unknown background of anyone I have ever heard or read about.
What concrete proof do we really have when and where his parents were born, or even who are his real parents? We cannot say, for certain, when his mother died, if at all, and when his grandmother died, if at all, and from what real causes?
I would caution you to make NO assumptions or presumptions about the FACTS of Obama's life because we have so few of them to even paint a family portrait.
The reason why BO is fighting the BC issue, tooth and nail, is becuase the FACTS on it would destroy his entire mythology. Without that mythology, he is less than ZERO.
LOL I know exactly what you mean about Irish records, I got lost in County Donegal trying to trace a great great grandmother and never did find complete records for her! I also knew that many Irish records had been lost to fires. What I meant about a fire destroying records in Kenya in 2007 is that it would be suspicious to say the least, since so many Kenyas pinned their dreams on either Kenya having a Luo President or the U.S. having a Luo President.