John Allen (Irish nationalist)

John Allen (died 1855) was an Irish nationalist, and later a colonel in the French army.

John Allen was a native of Dublin, where he was also for some time a partner in a drapery business. Along with Arthur O'Connor he was tried for high treason at Maidstone in February 1798, but acquitted. He was an associate of Robert Emmet and involved in the rebellion of 1803.

After the abortive result of the project of Emmet, whose special confidence he enjoyed, Allen escaped from Dublin in the uniform of the Trinity College Yeomanry corps, and obtained a passage in a vessel to France. Entering the Irish Legion, he was promoted colonel for leading the storming party at the capture of Astorga, in Spain, in 1810. During the second occupation of Paris his surrender was, it is said, demanded by the British government; but while being conducted to the frontier, he made his escape, with the connivance of the gendarmes who had him in charge, at the last station on French territory. Subsequently he took up his residence at Caen, in Normandy. Allen was a Protestant. He is stated in Myles Byrne's Memoirs (iii. 190) to have died at Caen 10 Feb. 1855.