  We present a study of barred galaxies in the cluster environment, exploiting
a sample of galaxies drawn from the extended WIde-field Nearby Galaxy-cluster
Survey (OmegaWINGS) that covers up to the outer regions of 32 local X-ray
selected clusters. Barred galaxies are identified through a semi-automatic
analysis of ellipticity and position angle profiles. We find, in agreement with
previous studies, a strong co-dependence of the bar fraction with the galaxy
stellar mass and morphological type, being maximum for massive late-type
galaxies. The fraction of barred galaxies decreases with increasing cluster
mass and with decreasing clustercentric distance, a dependence that vanishes
once we control for morphological type, which indicates that the likelihood of
a galaxy hosting a bar in the cluster environment is determined by its
morphological transformation. At large clustercentric distances, we detect a
dependence on the distance to the nearest neighbor galaxy, suggesting that
tidal forces with close companions are able to suppress the formation of bars
or even destroy them. Barred galaxies in our sample are either early-type, star
forming galaxies located within the virial radii of the clusters or late-type
quenched galaxies found beyond the virial radii of the clusters. We propose a
scenario in which already quenched barred galaxies that fall into the clusters
are centrally rejuvenated by the interplay of the perturbed gas by ram-pressure
and the bar, in galaxies that are undergoing a morphological transformation.
