The files with the definitions for the different font encodings would containg mappings from the utf-8 characters and a few control sequences (like \SS) to the font encoding. A LaTeX like style would look like
\catcode`Œ=\active %If this is not itself contained in the next macro
\DeclareTextSymbol{Œ}{T1}{215}
A more direct approach would just be
\catcode`Œ=\active
\defŒ{\char215 }
