The Olympic torch made a brief detour on Monday after dissident republicans staged a protest during its passage across Northern Ireland, police said.

The demonstration in Londonderry, Northern Ireland’s second city, over policing forced the torch to take an alternative route before crossing the city’s Peace Bridge.

Londonderry Democratic Unionist Party lawmaker Gregory Campbell called the protesters “pathetic”.

“The minor inconvenience which it brought is not the major issue, it is not even the negative headlines that their actions bring to Northern Ireland which is the overriding concern, but it is the potential that their activities bring to the first ever UK City of Culture events next year,” he said.

The bridge is a symbol of cross-community reconciliation and was opened relatively recently between a disused army barracks in a mainly Protestant part of Derry and its largely Catholic centre.

Earlier Monday, the flame was held aloft at the Giant’s Causeway, the spectacular coastal rock formation, the highlight of its journey across Northern Ireland.

The torch is being taken round all parts of the United Kingdom in a 10-week, 8,000-mile (12,875-kilometre) relay ahead of the 2012 London Games, which start on July 27.